Not Like Others (cert. 15) will be released on DVD (£12.99) by Chelsea Films on 25th October 2010

Not Like Others has received praise for it realistic, down to earth approach to the Vampire mythos, playing down the high Gothic camp, secret societies, centuries old love affairs, stakes through the heart and garlic cliches of standard bloodsucking fare for something far more honest and human, a tale of outsiders in a cruel, unforgiving world. It’s no spoiler to say that the film spins out from the vampiric slaying of a skinhead gang leader and this in itself is interesting.

In a Europe increasing divided by religious and racial intolerence, long held predjudices are again raising their ugly heads. Indeed, in Sweden where Not Like Others was made, the far right has made significant inroads into mainstream politics and some now argue that they are the minority party that holds the balance of power. In Not Like Others, the two vampire sisters could pass for refugees in their manner of dress and they are marginal members of society in the same way as the Roma are or any group of immigrants living in an unwelcoming new home. In this regard, pitching them against a gang of Skinheads is a clever move.

Although it should be pointed out that Skinhead as a movement isn’t intrinsically racist, for the purposes of making a cinematic point, let’s assume they are. By pitching two outcasts against the might of raw, unthinking hate, the filmmaker uses the vampire genre to illustrate how brutal European societies have been and can become again if ignorance and fear are allowed to flower freely.

Like other ‘outsider’ vampire movies that don’t subscribe to the usual creaky cliches of the genre (Martin, Vampire’s Kiss, Let the Right One In), Not Like Others presents a horror that doesn’t operate on a purely supernatural level. This is a horror only once removed from reality and it’s all the better for it. The director weaves elements of Jean Rollins amazing 70s productions (twin, doomed vampires, sombre tone, erotic bloodletting), updating the French directors arty softcore Lesbian vampire for a modern audience and creating a movie that uses the tragic circumstances of the two leads to make the audience sympathetic to two characters who essentially view us as prey.

In this weeks clip from the movie, we see one of the sisters cleaning up after a ‘meal’. It’s a simple scene that illustrates the realist tone and natural performances that set the movie apart from other, more traditional monster movies…