Was considered the best horror film out of Sweden in years, and it lived up to its billing. Plenty of creepy vibe throughout (that almost eternal northern winter dark is perfect!), lots of good character study of the European sort, bits of campy fun (a hilarious cat sequence), and an underlying sense of pathos and loneliness that's really quite haunting. What I've always found most interesting about vampires is the notion of immortality combined with non-growth (you live forever--by most canon--at the age at which you were "turned" or "made"). "True Blood" does a great job of this on HBO, especially in terms of lasting vampire relationships ("[We've been married for] almost 700 years, but sometimes, it feels like 7,000!"). But here you have the most basic problem of necessary companionship for a tweener vamp, otherwise how can she function as a minor in society? On the surface, that seems like not much of a plot, but it works beautifully here, especially since the two young actors are so exquisitely good. The ending is a grabber, in a great, low-key horror-film way.
As a rule, I like Nordic horror second only to Korean and Japanese. These people are still in touch with their monsters and spirits, while we mostly seem fascinated with serial killers and mass murderers of the gun-everybody-down sort. We have lost the horror vibe here in the States (save for literature), which is why most of our horror films today are remakes, like the one coming out within days on this with my new favorite young actress Chloe Moretz (Hit Girl from "Kick Ass"). Inevitably I will see it again (this film), but I doubt it will be any better, because this one was that good.
[POSTSCRIPT: Reading Variety's review late last night confirmed my suspicion: an almost scene-for-scene homage that adds more gore and--sadly--cuts out the killer cats! It's judgment: why did Hollywood bother? Save yourself some bucks and rent this instead.]