If You Don't Invite Me, I Can't Come In

Let The Right One In
2008, dir. Tomas Alfredson. 1 hour 55 minutes

Supposedly, Bram Stoker's novel Dracula was the first book to ever have its film rights sold to a motion picture studio, and its said that Dracula is the most filmed fictional character in cinema. Combine that with all the films about vampires that don;t include Dracula, and its clear that vampires are very popular material indeed. The latest literary (and now cinematic) fad are the Twilight novels (if you haven't read them, then congratulations, you're not a 13 year old girl). Now, from Sweden, also based on a best-selling novel, is the film Let The Right One In, and it is one of the best vampire films ever made, because it eschews all the classic (and thus cliched) aspects of the vampire tale and replaces them with the chilling realism of what it is to be undead.

The film is about a young 12 year old boy, Oskar, who is an outcast and loner in school, frequently the target of sadistic bullies. A similarly-aged girl, Eli, moves into Oskar's apartment building, and Oskar slowly befriends her, despite her reservations. She resists, because although Eli is 12 years old, she has been 12 for a very very long time. This relationship between the two young outcasts looking for friendship at the cusp of adolescence is at the heart of the story; Oskar feels like he'll never grow up and escape it all, and Eli KNOWS she won't.

Let The Right One In's strengths are in what other films may think of weaknesses. Instead of artificial looking CGI and special effects, This film uses camera angles and other optical effects to give the impression of things like a vampires power to fly without actually having to show it. You think you see it, which is sometimes better than having actually seen it. The two young actors feel intensely believable in their roles, and the film retains enough gore and thrills to please to usual horror fans, too. Hopefully, people can overcome any resistance to subtitles they may have and go check out this film.

5 stars out of 5.

Steph and I saw this at the Bytowne on Friday night.