Let The Right One In Review

Hello, Nothing Files Land. Mikey here and boy are my pants tight. Anyway, I'm here to tell you about the latest movie that turned my squirrel knuckle into a moose knuckle. How do you take your scary movies? Chock-full of gore and gratuitous nudity? Scene after scene of torture and even more gruesome torture? Or with that slow, pervading sense of terror that movies like The Exorcist or Rosemary’s Baby (or even The Shining, to a more frenzied degree) leave you with? Say the latter. Please. I just watched a beautiful, horrifying film and for the first time in my life I have to agree with Harry Knowles (God save my soul). Let the Right One In is amazing. Truly amazing. This is a vampire movie. Simple as that. But there are no puffy-shirted, pretty men telling their unlife stories. No, this is a movie where the superstitions of vampires play little or no part. Do you remember that girl in middle school that you were to afraid to talk to? The one whose smile sent you into cardiac arrest outside of the lunchroom, shaking into the bathroom until you’re sense of reality returned? Now picture that little girl ripping your bully’s throat out and leaving him quivering on the closest frozen pond. That’s Let the Right One In.

Apparently Sweden is one giant trailer park. Trust a man who grew up in the South. The overarching feeling of white trash-edness that pervades The Hills Have Eyes or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (the originals) is wholly at play in this film. Just move the action from Lubbock, Texas to Stockholm. Every character in this movie seems haunted by their life or past choices. The main character is a young, twelve year old boy named Oskar. His home life seems shattered and he spends his nights in the courtyard of his apartment building stabbing the telephone pole he pretends to be the bully mocking him daily. That is until a dark, barefooted girl (Eli) appears behind him…in the snow. Strange, right? He doesn’t seem to notice this peculiarity and before long the locals take to disappearing. While some movies might amaze you with special effects or bore you with backstory, this movie simply is. It shows you that this girl is hungry and feeds. It shows you that she has a Renfield following her and fucking up his job of providing her food. It shows you adolescent love at its purest and it moves you because of it. Oskar and Eli begin a slow courtship, made even more difficult by the fact that she eats his neighbors. And the fact that they are twelve and don’t know what a courtship entails. Oskar asks Eli if she will go steady with him and her (apparent) age stops her from answering the question, unsure of what it means. They occasionally hold hands and it seems Oskar doesn’t notice when he pulls his away, stained with blood. This movie isn’t a traditional vampire movie but it is a cleverly disguised coming-of-age film. One incredible scene has Eli talking to Oskar about the bullies that constantly torment him. She tells him to become her…only long enough to deal with them. And it is legitimately heart-wrenching in a beautifully twisted manner. Enough to make you overlook some of the films problems. This movie is based on a novel and because of that is abridged to a certain degree i.e. Eli’s constant claims that she is not a girl (something that makes sense within the context of the film but still leaves you scratching your head after certain scenes). Also, and this might be a personal matter, some of the subtitles don’t match with the emotions portrayed onscreen (did I mention this is subtitled? You should have known, it’s set in Sweden after all.) But these slight “problems” are nothing when compared with the film as a whole. It has beautifully executed death scenes, with bodies falling as gracefully as snowflakes and FX scenes that you barely notice.

Overall, I would recommend this movie to anyone that likes movies. Not just scary movies or vampire movies or coming-of-age movies (Stay golden, Pony Boy) but to anyone that like movies, period. It’s a dark, depressing fantasy movie that has the stink of reality all over it. And is all the more beautiful because of it. Fuck. Harry Knowles was right. Once.