Thank you God! After a decade of Hollywood fucking up the beauty that is vampire movies and the unforgivable rape of cinema that is the Twilight series.. It only took one little film from Sweden to redeem the entire vampire film genre.
I have actually seen Let The Right One In before, long time ago last year but it never occurred to me to write a review about it, on the simplest of facts I thought no one would ever see it. But it has been getting a lot of buzz lately and watching it again in the Nordic Film Fest sent me over. I absolutely adore this movie. And if you are one of those people who say they don't like this film because it is slow, or boring, or dull, or has no action. Then I would like to say "FUCK YOU! DUMB WHORE BAGS!"
Let The Right One In is exactly what Twilight should have been. It is a fucked up vampire romance story about Oskar, a boy who's family is falling apart when his gay father and mother divorce and to make things worse, he is subjected to bullying in school. Then he meets Eli, his new neighbor who is actually a 112 year old vampire in the form of a 10 year old girl and the two find love in between both their flawed and troubled lives. We get two stories from this movie essentially. One being a full out horror vampire film and another a coming of age romance story. And it is so compelling to watch.
Let The Right One In makes Twilight look like a fucking joke, especially since the two main characters have barely reached puberty but are carrying and portraying so many adult and even violent themes so well. I think what really drew me to this movie was that these characters were so young, but so so so fucked up in the head. And the two actors who played these roles are going to become horror legends in the next 10 years.
We have Oskar, who gives off a slight hint of serial-killer-in-the-making-itis most of the time especially when he is alone. You know that kid that is so creepy, you'd think he'd grow up to be a terrorist or a child rapist? Yeah that's Oskar. The same can be said for Eli who starts out as a selfish girl who manipulates people like Oskar to kill and hunt for blood for her. But both characters begin to evolve as their friendship grow stronger and as we learn more and more about them. Best of all, the build up to their romance is 100% believable and totally works unlike Edward and Bella who are all like 'Ohh, I stopped a car from crushing you.... I love you!"
Another thing I liked about this movie is that the filmmaker doesn't directly tell you all these things that I've just described in the paragraph above. He hints it to you in small bits and pieces in the film that may seem irrelevant to people who think that movies like Dance Flick and White Chicks are actual comedies. The film drives in all it's themes very subtly and quietly and let's the audience interpret it for themselves.
And Let The Right One In takes vampire folklore really really seriously. The director really did his homework on how a vampire behaves. And I love how they used the whole rule of vampires not being able to cross the threshold of a home without being invited in and made one of the most shocking, horrifying scenes with a 10 year old girl in the last decade. Oh and by the way, the film has an amazing ending. Seven words. Nine year old carcasses on the floor. Muahahahaha.
Let The Right One In is art film making at it's finest. The people who made this went all out to tell a compelling story with top notch cinematography and haunting soundtracks without any intention of having the film be a business money maker. Suck it Twilight!RATING: 9/10