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The little vampire - Uli Edel, Jonathan Lipnicki, Rollo Weeks, Richard E Grant

Threat advisory: High - High risk of entertaining activities

Movie propaganda

They're not just best friends. They're blood brothers.

It is not easy being a 9-year-old in a new country. Tony Thompson (Jonathan Lipnicki) has just moved with his parents Dottie (Pamela Gidley) and Bob (Tommy Hinkley), from a big bustling city in the USA to a small village in a remote corner of Scotland.

Every night, in his new home, Tony has nightmares about vampires, and he has no idea why. He soon becomes so absorbed by them that he starts studying every book he can find on the subject. His classmates tease him about his vampire obsession, especially the cruel local kids, Nigel and Flint, nephews of local Squire, and Bob's employer, Lord McAshton (John Wood). The teacher at his new school is so shocked he tells Tony's mother about how worried he is; not a good start for the new kid in town.

One evening, while in his room, practising basic vampire moves, Tony gets a visit from a large bat, which transforms before his eyes into a 9-year-old vampire boy, Rudolph (Rollo Weeks), who happens to be extremely hungry, and convinced that Tony is one of his kind.

Based on a series of German children's books written by Angela Sommer-Brodenburg, The little vampire is a sweet and kid-safe tale of the horrific.

Also starring Richard E Grant as Frederick Sackville-Bagg, Alice Krige as Freda Sackville-Bagg, Anna Popplewell as Anna and Jim Carter as Rookery. Written by Karey Kirkpatrick, directed by Uli Edel.

Cinematic intelligence sources

The little vampire official movie site
See also Casper
Studios and distributors:

Roadshow Films

Intelligence analyst

Special Agent Matti

Theatrical report

The little sweetie.

Not the least bit scary to a cynical grown-up, The little vampire is still a great baby-sitter with plenty of action and laughs. With a nice piece of 21st century role reversal, the baddies are the goodies and the goody is the baddy (ie vampires = good, vampire hunters = bad). For little kids such an unusual way of looking at the world is as usual as it is not. It's only when they've assimilated their parents' fears that they start getting afraid of things which aren't scary.

Johnathan Lipnicki does everything you'd expect from a Hollywood child star (except throw tantrums, but who knows what happened off camera?), who came hot off the presses of a hit like Stuart Little (yes, there's a sequel: Stuart Little 2!). The adults are suitably adult (ie they're just a little bit stupid and more than a little bit contemptuous of their youngers) and if Freda Sackville-Bagg seems familiar it's because she is: Alice Krige played the Borg Queen in Star trek: first contact. Hmmm... Borg Queen... Vampire Queen... Borg Queen... Vampire Queen....

The best performance comes from Rollo Weeks as the adventuresome vampire kiddiewink, Rudolph. And you'd better be a vampire if you have a name like that because you're gonna get a hell of a ribbing at school. But Rollo (a wonderfully memorable name in itself) has the strength of character to hack it. He's as mesmerising and romantic as any vampire should be despite being far too young for that sort of thing. He has an exotic yet familiar face that will break many a heart if he continues in the acting profession. He also exudes confidence and authority that steal the camera away from anyone unlucky enough to share the screen with him. He's a lot like Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot) in that respect, but with the added darkness that comes from being an immortal superbeing with a taste for fresh blood.

Your kids will enjoy The little vampire more than you will, and you'll have no problems sitting through the 94 minutes. Perhaps it's because the film has its roots in German literature rather than Hollywood dream factories. Perhaps it's because it's this is one of the few films to attempt showing nighttime as a dark time with not much light. Whatever, it's fun.