From 1997 to 2003, Buffy the Vampire Slayer single-handedly reinvented the high-school genre, splicing it with action, comedy and the supernatural. Series by series, Anne Billson unravels the magic of Buffy, examining the antecedents, influences and the new twist on the age-old story of the struggle between Good and Evil.

Audiences can't get enough of fang fiction. Twilight, True Blood, Being Human, The Vampire Diaries, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Blade, Underworld, and the novels of Anne Rice and Darren Shan--against this glut of bloodsuckers, it takes an incredible film to make a name for itself. Directed by Tomas Alfredson and adapted for the screen by John Ajvide Lindqvist, The Swedish film Lat den ratte komma in (2008), known to American audiences as Let the Right One In, is the most exciting, subversive, and original horror production since the...