Vampire movie "Let Me In" deserves a serious look.

"Twilight" is so yesterday. Absent are the tense, silent and many times uncomfortable moments between teenage girl and teenage vampire. In Matt Reeves' remake of "Let Me In", the theme is adolescent (as in, 12 year old) loneliness. However, the film's story isn't new. It's a remake of the Swedish English speaking movie of the same title, based on the book Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist.

Kodi Smitt-McPhee (see movie "The Road) plays Eli, the twelve year old boy who lives in an apartment complex in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Bullied daily at school, (and that's some serious torture he puts up with), Eli sits at home at night spying on his neighbors with a telescope and fantasizing about how to destroy the mean kids at school. He carries around a knife, and never uses it except to jab at a tree and pretend to stab those he hates in his room.

While spying through his telescope in the dark one night, he watches the new neighbors arrive - an older man and a young girl. She doesn't go to school. She comes out a night, barefooted in the snow. Her name, Abby. With the innocence and openness of a twelve year old, he accepts her this way and she becomes his only friend. He waits for her each night, and doesn't question her weirdness until much later. He suspects abuse, but never says it out loud - he can hear yelling through the wall where she lives on the other side.

Then - people start dying. A teenager. A runner from the apartment complex. Meanwhile at school, Eli is still putting up with his bully. The yelling is continuing on the other side of his wall. I'll stop there.

The movie, while much more simple than the book its based on, touches some real issues that "Twilight" and "True Blood" don't come anywhere near. That's what makes this movie so compelling. You can believe it, despite the fact the vampire stuff is going on. A vampire movie, that's believable? OMG.

It's not just believable, it's moving. I'm fond of stories that touch on the loneliness of human beings, the uncertainty of life. It's universal, it's in all of us - the fear of being alone - and sure, vampires work here. This is a movie that deserves your attention, even if it's just to make you aware of what some kids have to go through as young people in school and at home. This story is very, very human - ironic, yes?