Let the Right One In (2008) - A Movie Review by Andrew Lawrence

Source: http://revoltdaily.org/let-the-right-one-in-review-2/

Director: Thomas Alfredson

Writer: John Ajvide Lindquist

Stars: Kåre Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson

Trailer link

IMDb page

On a cold, stormy night:

Let the Right One In is a Swedish horror film set in a cold and snowy Stockholm suburb. It centers around a couple of lonely and unwanted children; a 12-year-old boy and a female vampire, who despite being stranded in the middle of nowhere (both literally and figuratively), end up finding solace in each other's company. Oscar's parents are divorced, and when he isn't being bullied at school or yelled at by his mother, he spends his time hanging out on a cold concrete playground close to his apartment complex. This is where he meets Eli, a curious girl with black hair who walks barefooted in the dead of winter, seems wise beyond her years, and has some weird eating habits. Oscar immediately notices that something isn't quite right about this girl, but being a true 12-year-old, he happily accepts the impossible when faced with the opportunity to make a friend.

A genre facelift:

Most people associate the term "vampire movie" with sparkly, glaring and depressed supermodels with girlfriend problems, or old, haunted Eastern European mansion filled with bats and coffins. With Let the Right One In however, we get none of these clichés and worn out premises. It's a wholly original film, one that takes the vampire genre (and the horror genre as a whole) by its feet and turns it upside down, making for one of the most unique cinematic experiences I've had in my life. Let the Right One In is a sad, dark, frightening and at times also extremely tender and heartwarming film that has haunted me ever since I saw it, but for completely different reasons than horror film normally do. It is a film entirely devoid of garlic, crosses, silver bullets and other such vampire tropes, yet director Thomas Alfredson still has his feet solidly planted in a mythology that as of a few days ago didn't appeal to me in the slightest. 

The right amount of fiction:

In my opinion, the best thing about this film is the fact that its supernatural elements are used as tools to tell a story, rather than an excuse to put some guts and violence on a TV-screen. I was chocked when I first realized that Eli, the young vampire portrayed by Lina Leandersson, is one of the most believable and convincing characters I have ever come across not just in cinema, but in fiction as a whole. For some reason I just couldn't keep my heart from breaking every time a new side to this character was revealed, and the fact that the relationship she shares with Kåre Hedebrant's character touched me as profoundly as it did, despite this being a horror film, should tell you something about how much I adore it. As I explained earlier, Alfredson doesn't hit you over the head with the fact that there's a vampire in his movie, which lets us view the world he creates through Oscar's eyes. We accept the film's supernatural premise because Oscar does; because we can't help it. 

"Kill for me, baby.":

Horror movies generally don't have subdued messages and underlying currents woven into them anymore, and often leave their audiences with nothing to ponder over on their way home other than how gory that climactic chainsaw fight was. Let the Right One In breaks that mold. One of the main themes in the film is the blurred lines between good and evil, and whereas the American remake from 2010 uses mouthy and forced dialogue to try and achieve a similar effect, Alfredson and his cinematographer's subdued approach is infinitely more thought provoking and lingering. They manage to make me fall in love with a character who kills people on a regular basis, much in the same way that Oscar blindly accepts that this is how his new friend behaves. Let the Right One In is an alarmingly thought provoking and ethically challenging film in my opinion, and one that I'll be rewatching many many times in the future. 

To have seen it is to love it:

You're in for a surprise if you go into this film expecting something in the vein of Twilight, Nosferatu or Bram Stoker's Dracula, but depending on how open minded you are, it's likely to be one of the best surprises you'll ever be subjected to. Thomas Alfredson got his international breakthrough with Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, a phenomenal cold war thriller which I have reviewed in the past, but he would have never gotten the chance to direct a movie on the scale of Tinker Tailor had it not been for the success of Let the Right one In, which in my opinion is the better of the two films. I'm currently in the process of compiling a top 10 list of movies from 2014, but since this heartbreaking Swedish vampire movie came out in 2008, the very best film I saw this year won't be featured on the list.