Movie Review: Let The Right One In

Synopsis: Oskar, an overlooked and bullied boy, finds love and revenge through Eli, a beautiful but peculiar girl who turns out to be a vampire.

Let me start with this: I'm not a big fan of vampire movies. I've never really liked them and there are only a few on my list of favorites... namely 30 Days of Night, The Lost Boys, Near Dark and Fright Night. It's a genre that's been overdone I think and finally with the Twilight movie and books, it's been made into something for kids (as if it wasn't already with Count Chocula and The Count from Sesame Street... I mean how can a thing that kills people and drinks their blood teach your kid to count?) But last fall I did sort of get into True Blood on HBO (think Twilight for adults I guess) and all the reviews for this movie seemed to hype it's greatness so I figured I'd give it a shot. I'm really glad I did too, because it's great.

What's different about it? Well mainly the storytelling. If it were without anything at all about vampires it'd just be a good, atmospheric, well-made coming-of-age story about typical loner kid with puppy love for an interesting new girl. But take that and add major bursts of violence and it becomes a classic. And something that is rare lately in movie making... the ending is just damn near perfect. It's the last thing you'll remember about the film and you'll probably remember it for a while.

One of the things so great about this movie is the subtlety of it. It's not big and loud and in-your-face like most modern horror films. There's not a big rock music score and cats jumping into windows for scares. It's quiet. There are heartbeats and people taking breathes that set the tone. It makes the violent scenes seem all that much more violent and loud. It sort of draws you in with haunting tenderness and then smashes you in the face once in a while. It's equal parts poetic and gory.

It's a Swedish film, so obviously they're remaking it with an American version because Hollywood seems to be out of original ideas for the most part. I don't know how they'll recapture the magic of the stars, style and mood of this version though, so see it before the remake comes out. Whoever they get as the 2 lead kids will not be as good as the 2 in this film, I assure you.

This is a fantastic dark, creepy, quiet vampire movie.

9/10