Let The Right One In (2008)

‘Let The Right One In 'is a romantic horror set in 1982 in the proletarian suburb of Blackeberg, Stockholm in Sweden. Oskar, an intelligent 12-year-old boy who lives with his mother, is bullied at school, pees himself and has a peculiar fascination with crime and forensics - he secretly keeps a scrapbook filled with newspaper articles about horrific murders. He takes interest in a series of homicides in his town, which to his surprise are committed by the newcomers, Eli and Håkan, next door. Eli is a beautiful 200-year-old vampire stuck in a 12-year-old girl’s body. She protects him from bullies at school and befriends him; their relationship soon blossoms. Håkan, a strange middle-aged man who lives with Eli, is in love with her, and reluctantly kills and drains people of their blood to feed her blood-lust. The original gothic vampire horror, ‘Låt Den Rätte Komma’ (Let The Right One In), was written by Swedish writer, John Ajvide Lindqvist in 2004 and was a bestseller in Sweden, recently gaining its popularity over here. The novel’s themes concentrate on the darker side of humanity, such as paedophilia, anxiety, bullying, and murder. The actual screenplay was re-written by Linqvist himself, but he was asked by the director, Tomas Alfredson, to tone down many elements of the novel and focus on the relationship between the children as he had no experience in directing horror and vampire genres. Well, why on earth would you direct a film on a genre you have no experience in?! Despite this, you would expect most films based on novels to not emotionally capture you like when you turn over the final pages of a brilliant book, but Linqvist did not (entirely) make a mistake following the director’s advice. Yes, I rather enjoy reading the book (even though I haven’t finished it yet!) but after seeing the film I am not disappointed at all. Alfredson proved to be not too bad at horror. ‘Let The Right One In ' is relatively a new film, being released in 2008. It’s a drama, romance, mystery, thriller and fantasy starring Kåre Hedebrant (as Oskar), Lina Leandersson (as Eli) and Per Ragnar (as Håkan). Except for Ragnar, for the main cast this is their first feature film. The children’s ability to act is not bad considering they have no experience, but they could be better. However, most of the movie was filmed outside at temperatures of -30 degrees, so I’ll give them that. I also found it quite annoying that the most part of the movie didn’t have a soundtrack! For a 29 million Swedish krona budget (about 4 million US dollars), I don’t know how they weren’t able to fit that in. The stunts were a bit sketchy too, but towards the end of the film the special effects were quite good. I was very surprised to find out that Eli’s character was actually dubbed by Elif Ceylan: as Eli’s character is slightly androgynous, Lina’s voice was simply too girly. This film was nominated for BAFTA Film Award, won 60 other awards (both in Sweden and around the world in total) and had another 17 nominations. It has also been remade by the American director Matt Reeves as ‘Let Me In’ which was very recently released in the cinemas. If you are the type of person who loves a film with a great plot, you must watch this film. Do not be misled, (the ad doesn’t do a good job of pulling people in) – it’s not another teen cliché vampire love-story like Twilight. I loved this film so much; it brought tears to my eyes 3 times, it scared me 10 times and made me sigh (happily) a 100 times! ‘Let The Right One In ' is truly a wonderful story and deserves all of its praise! Drum roll…4.5 stars from me!