The Little Vampire film review

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THE LITTLE VAMPIRE

You have to feel sorry for vampires. Ever since that nasty Bram Stoker injected blood into the literary veins of Dracula, the creatures of the night have been portrayed as sadistic and emotionless demons, silently stalking human prey (buxom wenches preferred) and gorging themselves on our lifeforce.

So it's completely understandable that when nine-year-old Tony Thompson (Jonathan Lipnicki) comes face-to-face with a real live vampire, his first impulse is to run screaming in the other direction.

Luckily for Tony, the vampire in question is Rudolph (Rollo Weeks), a good and friendly soul belonging to a long line of nocturnal wanderers who only drink the blood of cows.

Rudolph and his family are desperately searching for a legendary ruby amulet which can help them regain their mortality. But only if they find the stone before the comet Attamon crosses the moon, a spectacular celestial event which takes place every 300 years.

In a stranger twist of fate, Tony has been having strange dreams about the amulet and knows that the stone is located somewhere within the castle of squire Lord McAshton (John Wood). Sensitive to Rudolph's plight, Tony vows to help, and the two boys embark on an exciting mission to find and retrieve the missing gem.

Danger looms large, however, in the form of tenacious vampire hunter Rookery (Jim Carter) who has tracked the Rudolph and his family to the area with his antiquated home-made detection system, and plans to stake the entire fanged clan at the first available opportunity.

Based on the bestselling children's book by Angela Sommer-Bodenburg, TheLittle Vampire is a charming family film with plenty of gentle thrills and spills for younger audiences: flying vampire cows, several close scrapes with Rookery and a tense, edge-of-seat finale.

The film transposes the roles of heroes and villains, placing the audience's affections firmly on the side of the vampires. Rudolph and his kin do nothing to threaten the humans in the community (the cattle might have cause for complaint though), yet they are persecuted mercilessly by Rookery and the scheming Lord McAshton.

Amidst the action and horror, there is plenty of humour too, such as Tony getting sweet revenge on Lord McAshton's obnoxious grandsons who have been bullying him at school, or a farmer's look at disbelief when his whole herd comes down with a nasty case of Vlad Cow Disease.