FILM
REVIEW – LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (2008)
Highly acclaimed, but mind-numbingly dull Swedish vampire movie. Swedish title - Låt den rätte komma in
A morose, lonely and introspective twelve year old boy, Oskar, is bullied repeatedly at school, until toughened up by his friendship with Eli, a girl who seems to be the same age as himself, but he gradually discovers that she is a two hundred year old vampire. .
Oskar fantasizes about fighting back, and knifing the bullies, but he never tries to resist when attacked. One day. New neighbours arrive, Eli and her Dad, who is human, but who kills her victims for her, to bring their blood to her. They live in an apartment with the windows blocked off to save Eli from sunlight. As the police investigate the missing people, and her Dad spills some blood before it gets to her, Eli is going hungry. Oscar notices that she smells odd and that she is unaffected by the very cold weather – much of the film being set in snow. covered landscapes. Eli now kills for herself, and after he is beaten up again, she encourages Oskar to fight back, so he takes up weight training. He also learns Morse code, and shares that lesson with Eli, and they use it to communicate when separated.
Eli’s Dad is caught as he stalks a new victim, and disfigures himself with acid to avoid being identified. Eli finds him in a secure lunatic asylum, by scaling the high, sheer walls to his window. - a reversal of the Dracula-Renfield relationship where Renfield is initially sprung from such an institution). He lets Eli feed from him, and then kills himself. Eli, naked and apparently flying, goes to stay with Oskar, to console her. Oskar offers to be her boyfriend.
Oskar encounters the bullies again, and they try to push him into a hole in the ice during a school skating trip but he fights back with a stick, cutting one bully’s ear off. At the same time, one of Eli’s victims is found under the ice. Oskar hides the frightened hungry girl in the school cellar, and cuts his hand to invite her into a blood bond of friendship. Eli laps the spilling blood from the floor like a dog and Oskar finally realizes what she is.
A lady called Virginia is a friend of the man killed and dumped in the ice and starts to investigate. Confronting Eli, she is bitten and starts turning into a vampire after she gets home. Taken to hospital and contemplating suicide, she asks the doctors to open the curtains. The sunlight immediately makes her explode into flames. When one of her friends traces Eli, Oskar warns is friend and she kills the amateur vampire hunters. There is a very moving scene where Eli shows Oskar the effects of her entering a room uninvited. She tries and bleeds from her eyes until Oskar invites her in.
Oskar’s defensive attack on the bullies hasn’t deterred them at all, but made them murderous. They try to drown Oskar in the school pool, but Eli comes out and dismembers them all. Oskar leaves town by train, and has a large luggage basket with him – from it comes Morse code tapping – the word tapped out is kiss. The pair are fugitives, with Oskar now her new, sane, loving Renfield.
Slow, ponderous, with some controversial sexual overtones but at times lacking in any genuine excitement despite its originality.
Though an English dub of the film is out on DVD, a full English language Hollywood remake is planned for 2010. The title is likely to be ‘Let Me In’.
LINKS
LET THE RIGHT ONE IN ON THE INTERNATIONAL MOVIE DATABASE http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1139797/synopsis & ON WIKIPEDIA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_the_Right_One_In_(film)
Arthur
Chappell
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