The Dark

An old man on the run makes a gruesome mistake when he hides out in the haunted backwoods of Devil's Den in this undead tweak to Let the Right One In. That 2008 Swedish chiller was a surprisingly moving fable about a boy and a vampire girl in a small town: here it's blinded kidnap victim Toby Nichols who's liberated from his captor by snarling ghoul Nadia Alexander, the source of local scary stories. He's cold and hungry, she's dead and partial to human flesh, but a unique odd-couple relationship evolves, causing Alexander's "kill first, eat later" tendencies to recede as she protects the traumatised teen. Despite some bloody violence, the debut feature from Justin P Lange is no mere "monster in the woods" gorefest. It's really a tale about two damaged souls regaining their humanity and it's all the richer for that.