Urgh my brain hurts

It's just as well I've never succumbed to the tempting lure of the frightfest festival pass - just three films in a row on Sunday made my head go funny, although oddly a sneeze seemed to fix it.

'From Within' was a cool, bleak teen horror. A nice and simple creepy premise about a supernatural suicide virus. However the final couple of minutes, showing the deaths of various townsfolk, were really not necessary. It would have been better to leave it at the point where you realise the curse has not been lifted and still have just a tiny chance that the heroine will stop it in time. Plus, without wanting to go into too much detail, why would the curse creature blow out the fire that the heroine is lighting to burn the spell book, when destroying the book would only ensure it could never be destroyed? A little work still to do, but hopefully as they hadn't finished the credits they will fix this before wider release.

'The Broken' was the third film we watched, so I may have been all out of adrenalin, but it was a bit of an anticlimax. The 'mirror self' is not a new idea, though used here to very creepy effect. It almost worked, but the fact that the heroine was the mirror self was too predictable by far, and more to the point why would a bang on the head make her think she was the 'good' self for so long? And why, when only her short term memory was affected, would she apparently have forgotten her own address so that it would be a big surprise to find out that she lived in Pembridge road?

To be fair, though, few films would stand up to following 'Let the Right One In'. This was the highlight of this year's festival for me and I can't wait to read the book. A totally unconventional vampire tale - as writer John Ajvide Lindquist said, he doesn't even like vampire stories, but found the idea that you have to invite in something that might kill (or save) you compelling. Also a sweet / sad Swedish coming of age story with some very funny moments - as the bully holds our hero's head under the water, we see the feet of one of the others being dragged at supernatural speed through the water behind him as the vengeful vampire comes to save him. One slightly curious point - apparently Eli, the young vampire, is supposed to be a boy - but I'm fairly sure when he peeks at Eli changing those are not boy 'parts'... really do need to read the book...