I heard quite a bit of buzz about Let The Right One In from the wonderful world of Internet nerds and geeks alike (a community of which I am a proud member, so don’t get me wrong there) — but, after watching the flick, I really entirely positively absolutely fail to see what all of the commotion is about.
Now, before I proceed any further, I should like to express the most sincere form of regret over the fact that I do not possess an attention span long enough to have enabled me to sit through the first twenty-five minutes of Let The Right One In without screaming, “Will something please happen?” Additionally, I beg your forgiveness for being far too conceited and narrow-minded (or “American” if you will) to take the time out to attempt to understand or appreciate the Swedish culture (which could be an oxymoron for all I know). Finally, I apologize for my instincts being entirely too fatherly and prudish in nature to allow myself to watch a 12-year-old vampire girl remove her clothes and crawl into bed with a 12-year-old towhead boy.
Let The Right One In (Låt Den Rätte Komma In) is something that the über-Christians in America are going to have a field day with — providing they’re brave enough to watch a filthy foreign horror film. Of course, it’s really not that much of a horror film — more like a pre-teen/coming-of-age/pseudo-romance movie with a lot of blood. But it most assuredly is a foreign film and it definitely has a strong filth vibe to it… so much so that I’m sure the entire storyline (based on a novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist, who also wrote the screenplay) will be washed down, sanitized, eviscerated, and then completely reassembled with leftover parts from other projects for the upcoming American remake.
The plot involves young Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant), a blindingly blonde-haired grade school lad who is the subject of much ridicule by his androgynous classmates. One evening, Oskar meets the new neighbor kid, Eli (Lina Leandersson). Their conversations consist of little more than irrelevant statements or half sentences (as do the discussions of the rest of the cast — more on that later), but soon, these two begin to form a weird friendship with each other. Naturally, it turns out Eli is a vampire, who has been letting her devoted familiar Håkan (Per Ragnar) do all the killing for her so as not to mount suspicion onto her (or something like that — hell, you figure it out) — but when her faithful manservant is captured, Eli’s friendship with Oskar begins to grow and mutate.
Article comments
1 - Loren in NYC
I not only forgive your short attention span . . . I pity you. But if you don't have the attention span to watch a movie, how can you review it? In spite of your prediction, you are the only one I've read who's called the film 'filthy' . . . to me that's not fatherly, it's repressed and twisted. You're really reviewing yourself, and should label the review appropriately.
Really is too bad . . . the film's been haunting my imagination for weeks.
2 - John
Yeah I think it is a shame too you have admitted basically to not having the concentration span to handle a movie that is NOT your typical Hollywood horrible horror film. The photography in this film alone was worth watching. Amazing shots and use of lighting. I agree with the other poster that perhaps you may be too self conscious to handle reviewing films in the first place as your review did lend itself to being some kind of self absorbed self diagnosis rather than a film review. We get way too few films of note these days let alone anything that sticks into your memory after having watched it for more than..um...a day. As for Christian groups having a "field day"....? I am sure they will they continually label and misrepresent film and music and have been doing so as long as I can remember.I'd like to have a mind of my own rather than let them do my thinking for me about what consitutes "filth".
3 - Luigi Bastardo
Hmm, interesting. I was actually poking a bit of fun at the people that inevitably WILL return this to their local video outlet citing that it IS a "filthy" film. We had people like that all the time at the video store I used to manage -- it drove me bonkers then, but now that sort of thing really tends to amuse me.
4 - El Bicho
"I was actually poking a bit of fun at the people"
didn't come across that way
5 - kemistree4
I'm American and i dont appreciate being put into the same category as narrow minded people like you. The film was interesting regardless of where it was made.