Everyone wants to sympathize with a vampire. We live in a world that cherishes our anti-heroes and relishes in revenge, violent or not, which could be why the horror genre is bank for production companies, bringing in billions of dollars a year. As everyone knows, money waters down anything that could be considered art. That’s why in a few years some of us will be purchasing $15 tickets to see Saw X.
That’s what makes the Swedish vampire instant cult feature Let the Right One In so special. It doesn’t suck. It’s a well-made, well-crafted film that tugs on your heartstrings and finds you covering your eyes every now and then, anticipating both heartbreak and gore. While it avoids the disgust-factor that the majority of modern horror films rely on, it doesn’t fall the way of Twilight. Its romance is real, flawed and altogether dangerous.
At its core, Let the Right One In is a coming-of-age love story. Set in 1982 in a Stockholm suburb, it follows Oskar, an introverted 12-year-old victim of playground bullying. Oskar often fantasizes about revenge, lamenting in playgrounds or by himself in his bedroom, acting out scenes of violence against his bullies. As he stabs a tree in a courtyard while daydreaming, he meets Eli, a strange, ominous girl who just moved in to the flat next door and claims to be 12 also, “more or less.”
It’s quickly revealed that Eli isn’t an ordinary girl, if a girl at all, and is actually a vampire relying on her father figure’s piss-poor murdering skills to sustain herself. The audience is immediately transfixed with the dimension of Eli’s plight, the difficult situation of being a conscious human while needing to murder in order to survive. She is literally isolated, as her windows are boarded up with discarded posters and cardboard.
Eli and Oskar become especially sympathetic characters as their friendship develops, and as more secrets are revealed. The most rewarding component of their friendship is Eli’s encouragement of Oskar to stand up to his bullies, who prove to be of the disturbingly awful variety. The dynamic ultimately brings the audience to an awkward mixture of applause and gasps at the bloodshed of 12-year-old boys.
An especially moving aspect of the plot is the figure of Håkan, Eli’s guardian who sacrifices himself at several points in the film to Eli’s situation by murdering locals. Unfortunately, this aspect is lost in the ambiguous treatment it is given. This is ultimately one of the few downfalls of the entire film. After the initial viewing, there are a handful of open questions concerning unexplained situations in the plot, and strange instances that are left to linger rather than being explained. Several plot elements are left to the audience’s inferences. Depending on the viewer, this could either be an annoyance, or an asset in that the film also lingers in your thoughts and mind long after watching. For those with unexplained issues with the film, there’s a plethora of online bulletin boards and communities where several of these questions are in the midst of lively, even intellectual discussion.
Though it is occasionally slow moving and not especially frightening by use of blood or guts like a typical horror flick, it’s a rewarding watch that brought the audience to audible applause. Even if that doesn’t sound necessarily like a good watch to you, fans of foreign or romance films are sure to enjoy alongside horror fanatics.
