A boy living in a farming community comes to suspect his neighbor, an English widow, is actually a vampire, who he suspects is responsible for the mysterious disappearance of two of his friends. After his father’s brutal suicide, the boy’s brother comes home and starts an affair with the neighbor, which the boy tries to disrupt when signs of the vampire’s effects on him become apparent.
This movie is strong on concept, but weak on execution. The ideas in it are really interesting–I like the way it slowly unfolds that the boy’s brother has been away in the Pacific during nuclear weapons testing, and the way he and his friends misinterpret the neighbor’s grief and isolation as signs of vampirism. But the acting is melodramatic, and some important plot points–in particular the friends’ abductions, and the father’s history of homosexuality and possible pedophilia–are left dangling.