Review: Let The Right One In

This is an outstanding contribution to cinema's long fascination with the vampyr, and brings some new spin to the subject matter. In short, boy meets girl, boy and girl fall for each other, but girl is a vampyr...

Set in a Stockholm suburb in the early 80s during a typically snowbound winter, the film focuses on Oskar, as 12-year-old boy, verging on being an albino, the only son of divorced parents, and very definitely an outcast by any measure. In between being bullied at school and being ignored by his mother, by night he befriends Eli, the new girl on the block who lives next door. Apparently unaffected by the freezing cold during their night-time meets, Eli gradually lets her hefty guard slip and slowly the two outcasts become an item of sorts.

The film glories not in gore (although as a vampyr movie inevitably there must be some blood-letting), but in the realistic mundanities of how to survive as a 12-year-old vampire. In a declaration of love and friendship, Oskar takes her to the sweetshop of buys her mixed candy: she tries it and suffers an allergic reaction (for want of a better word). Hakan, the old man she lives with, clearly both loves and fears her, while she treats him with a mixture of respect and disdain; he has the task of providing her with fresh blood - which can of course only be achieved through murder...

There's a pleasing lack of special effects or displays of vampyr powers: she says she can fly, but we only hear off-screen fluttering; and we only see the results of her final attack.

There's also a pleasing lack of info about Eli's past: while made a vampyr at the age of 12, we don't know how long she's been the undead; and we don't find out much about her relationship with Hakan,

The sense of unease, the feeling that nothing good can come of this prevails, aided by the downbeat setting, precise direction, a score that swirls from comforting to unsettling with ease, and deeply troubling sound design (ever wanted to know what a vampyr's stomach sounds like when it grumbles, now's your chance).

The principal cast are excellent, especially the two child leads, although internet scuttlebutt suggests Eli's voice is provided by another actor. Particularly fine is the scene where Oskar decides they should become blood brothers, ill-advisedly slitting his palm and offering Eli the opportunity to do the same: Eli's desire for the blood is offset by her own self-loathing and fear of revealing her true nature to him - it's exquisite.

In the end though, this is a romance (in both the original and more modern, accepted definition of the word) and love, even between the living and the undead, must triumph. This is very much the darker alternative to Twilight. See it.
Score: 8.5/10