Director: Tomas Alfredson
Writer: John Ajvide Lindqvist (Screenplay) John Ajvide Lindqvist (Novel)
Starring: Kare Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson, Per Ragnar, Henrik Dahl, Karin Bergquist
Plot: Oskar, an overlooked and bullied boy, finds love and revenge through Eli, a beautiful but peculiar girl.
There may be spoilers the rest of the review
Verdict: Modern Day Classic
Story: Let the Right One In starts as we meet bullied school boy Oskar (Hedebrant) who in secret is looking for a way to fight back against these bullies, he attention is caught when a new family with a young girl Eli (Leandersson) moves in to the same apartment building in the dead of night.
Around this same time Hakan (Ragnar) Eli’s father is seen performing a certain style of murder, draining the blood from his victim. This becomes clear when we see him interrupted leaving Eli having to show her own true colours as she hunts in the dark.
The two meet and become friends, but only at night, when it is safe for Eli to come out but Oskar doesn’t know the truth about Eli yet, so does he know what he is getting himself into with this young vampire? When Eli’s father is taken, she finds herself alone with the only friend in the world Oskar, this brings out the truth and a chance for Oskar to get revenge on all of his bullies.
Thoughts on Let the Right One In
Characters/Performance – Oskar is the typical lonely school boy who never fits in with the people around him finding himself being bullied by class mates looking for an escape from this world. Eli is also lonely because of the vampire side of her, she desires friendship but the vampire in her prevents that happening. We don’t get too much from the rest of the characters, we have the loyal guardian, the bullies and the neglectful parents.
Kare and Lina are both brilliant in the lead roles making you fully understand the motives they both face, the struggles they are going through and just carry this film effortlessly.
Story – The story focuses on two different loners that are drawn together to help each other solve their own problems. While there is a deeper look at how a vampire could well struggle in the modern world alone which is a huge draw to this movie, we also get to see how one boy handles being bullied with the extreme measurements. This is a slow-moving story that packs a real punch in the second half and is a much watch for the fans of vampire movies and high school movies.
Horror/Romance – Horror side of this film is in the pure violence involved when it comes to the kills or attacks in the movie. The romance side comes from the two young children falling in love with each other.
Settings – We are kept in this small Swedish town for this movie which shows it to be a perfect location for a vampire to hide out as well as being a place where someone could feel all alone.
Special Effects – We only have a few special effects in this movie, which I do feel works to all the levels it needs to in this film to make the terror filled moments work to their full effects.
Final Thoughts – This will go down as a modern classic in the vampire genre, with the final swimming pool scene easily the iconic scene of the movie.
Overall: This is a must watch film for the vampire fans.
Rating
