Review of LET THE RIGHT ONE IN

February 16, 2009

This is a Swedish movie with a lot of internet buzz. Before I watched, I only knew this film puts its own spin on the current vampire trend. I found it interesting to see a European take on the subject, as the Hollywood interpretation of the vampire is getting to be very predictable. The title refers to the legend (which I have not really heard before) that a vampire cannot enter a residential house without being invited in.

This tells the story of Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant), a pale blond 12-year old boy, a loner who is constantly picked on by bullies in school. He was befriended by his similarly lonely new neighbor, a pretty dark-haired 12-year old girl named Eli (a sublime Lina Leandersson). Their friendship develops in the dead of a snowy winter in a Swedish town, while a series of unexplained bloody murders were taking place in the neighborhood. Maybe that is all you need to know about the main plot. The rest is for you to discover while watching this movie.

The European style of film making is there. The slow pace. The straightforward storytelling. The stark sets. The quiet music. The natural actors. It all works for the benefit of this film. The atmosphere is very eerie. The violence while mostly hidden and off-screen was still frank and brutal in execution. The build-up to the actual scene of violence was replete with tension. There were many memorably scary images I have not seen before in other horror films, particularly that scene with the cats, and the climactic scene at the pool.

I think this is only the second Swedish movie I have seen after the classic yet (for me) woefully boring and over-rated Bergman opus "The Seventh Seal". This is a novel experience to watch a European horror film, after getting our fill of Asian horror a few years back. There are already plans to make a Hollywood version of this, and I dread how that would look like (like what they did to "The Ring" or "The Grudge.")

Though ineligible for the Oscar for a Best Foreign Film nomination due to release date problems, "Let The Right One In" has also earned its share of awards. Recently in the Online Film Critics Awards, this film won four awards for foreign film, adapted screenplay (for John Ajvide Lindqvist who adapted his own best-selling novel), breakthrough actor (for Lina Leandersson) and breakthrough director (for Thomas Alfredson).