Twilight vs. Let the Right One In

Vampires are in vogue with the explosive arrival of Twilight. Meanwhile through the back door a Swedish film playing at one theater (downtown Angelika) called Let the Right One In (Låt den rätte komma in) furthers cinema's romance with vampires.
Both films are keepers, each playing to their respective audiences, each using different strengths to achieve their goals. Twilight successfully reboots the myth of the undead for a teen/young adult crowd, upgrading familiar traits like a vampire's ability to withstand direct sunlight and presenting the whole affair with a combination of muted earthy tones, shutter manipulated editing and high contrast colors. The vampire clan in Twilight call themselves vegans because they feast on animals not humans.
Let the Right One In plays the game in a more traditional manner. When a vampire is exposed to direct sunlight they burst into flame and drinking human blood is de rigueur. Both films are based on popular novels. Let the Right One In gives good fang regarding creepiness and actual vampire stalking. Twilight doesn't suffer from walking the border of PG-13 violence, because there isn't a lot of slashing and slurping, and the fight at the end of the movie seems like a precursor to bigger skirmishes in bigger sequels. By contrast LTROI portrays its desire for blood with serious R rated mayhem.
Both films depict vampires with youthful personas even though as creatures they are a hundred (or more) years old. Twilight's Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen has the sleekest eyebrows you've ever seen. The eyebrow sculpting budget on Twilight must've been a line item. He makes a reference to being bitten in the early 20th century, which makes him around a century in human years. Yet he has the rage of angst and the lust in his heart and his obsession for high schooler Bella Swan (Kristin Stewart) even gives him pause. The blood sucker in Let the Right One In is a young girl Eli (Lina Leandersson) who first appears without a coat on the playground gymnastic bars one snowy night. (It's Sweden, everything is cold and covered with snow.) Her object of attraction, trouble magnet Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant), stabs a tree to take out agression against the bullies who hound him at school. You know where this is going, a Euro gothic My Bodyguard where intermittent scenes of horror action are punctuated by moments of alpha male school comeuppance.
Eli has a minion who gathers blood for her and poses as her guardian. Don't we all need loving proxy parents to line our sun drenched windows with cardboard? Edward Cullen lives as an adopted ward with Dr. Cullen the head of the vampire clan (Peter Facinelli). Twilight injects moments of obvious mirth with a stone cold snicker. Let the RIght One In's humor lies buried in snowbanks yet its there, subliminally tickling our fancy. In a typical chilly moment Eli's subordinate subdues a victim in a park and ties them upside down from a tree to drain their blood. The scene is night but the vision is bright white snow and when a white standard poodle strolls up and starts watching the air becomes subversive.
Let the Right One In wants to be taken seriously and gets the attention it demands. Evil tidings come in pretty packages. LTROI is simply more accomplished and leaves you chilled but wanting to know more about Eli and Oskar. Twilight seems more concerned with just being a pretty package.