Let The Right One In
Alright, you
can call me stupid on this one, but it took me until about halfway through Let
The Right One to arrive at certainty that this film was set in the
1970s. For the most part I was
attributing most of the hairstyles and fashion choices to the fact that this is
a Swedish movie and just figured that’s how Swedish kids style themselves. Even the anti-Russian comments could’ve just
been a joke about some old dude who hasn’t let the Cold War go.
I know this
movie features lots of kids playing outside with their imaginations and no
electronic devices, but I still wrote that off, half to it being Swedish and
half to it being a movie and it’s hard to make dramatic things happen on screen
when kids are just reacting to Facebook messages or staring intensely at their
mobile phones.
But the 1970s
is more than a setting in this movie, it’s kind of a style guide also. This movie is made completely in the style of
those old horror movies where it’s more like a real movie that just happens to
be built around a disturbing concept than a movie where they’re making things
tense and horrorish all the time. Movies
like Rosemary’s Baby and the
original The Wicker Man where it has all the same types of scenes as any
other genre of movie and the tone changes to match the scene as opposed to the
tone of genre impacting the scene. Funny
stuff happens, and they treat it as comedy.
Regular shit happens and they don’t try to make it all suspenseful. Then some freaky shit happens and they treat
that stuff as freaky. The thing is I was
never really into those Rosemary’s Baby type of horror movies in a big way. I like them fine, but they never blow me
away. I’m guessing the people who are blown
away by those types of movies are the ones calling this one of the best films
of the year.
This movie is a
vampire love story between two pre-teenagers.
We meet little Oskar practicing stabbing a tree with a hunting knife and
telling it to scream like it’s his bitch.
Eli likes this take-charge approach to pruning and she is immediately
attracted to him. And I thought the way
to a gal’s heart was putting on a tank top and driving around in a car with a
neon light underneath blasting rap music.
Silly me.
The two get to
know each other and she informs him that she can’t be his girlfriend because
she’s “not a girl”. You figure
she means this in the Britney Spears context of I’m Not A Girl, Not Yet A
Woman, and that she’s just wants to go see the Grand Canyon in buttcrack jeans
like Britney did in that video, but no.
When you get a clear shot at her crotch you realize she’s speaking
literally in that she lacks a vagina. I
guess Oskar uses Meatloaf logic and figures two out of three orifices ain’t bad
and sticks with her.
Their
relationship builds naturally and has some pretty wacky moments along the
way. Oksar realizes that his girlfriend
will occasionally freakout, turn all violent and crazy and need to suck blood
out of somebody’s neck, but that’s basically PMS with the blood flowing in the
opposite direction so it’s nothing any other guy doesn’t have to put up
with. But jeez, I know some guys who
don’t have a problem fucking a gal during that time of the month but I think
even they would draw the line at making out with a gal while she’s still got
somebody’s blood all smeared around her mouth.
Fuck, use a facecloth, some mouthwash and then call me.
This movie
makes several important points about how it’s good to date vampire and makes a
pretty compelling case. However I really
don’t think Sweden is a good place to be a vampire. It’s biggest city and capital, Stockholm has
a population less than one million and everything else is mostly little
villages full of people who seem to watch each other pretty closely and gossip
a lot.
I think Eli
should save up for a plane ticket to New York where according to the film Blade
there is a whole vampire subculture and network of nightclubs where vampires
dance to pulse-pounding techno and blood pours onto the dancefloor from
sprinklers, it’s hard to imagine that scene taking place with Abba
playing. In New York the human world is
just the sugar coated topping and vampires own the police, but in Sweden your
bloodsucking ways catch up with you quickly.
Especially since Sweden is such a wholesome socialist state, there just
aren’t as many hobos and prostitutes to kill when you need a quick blood fix so
you’re always going to be killing somebody who’ll be missed.
I always felt
like I was reacting to this movie is unintended ways. I’m glad I saw it in the cinema because if
I’d seen it at home I would’ve been convinced I misunderstood it. There were things that seemed like they were
supposed to be scary but came across as funny, and things that I think were supposed
to be endearing but I found creepy. But
I felt I could gauge other audience members reacting the same way I did, so
maybe I did read this whole movie right.
There was one moment with cats that I’m pretty sure wasn’t supposed to
be funny, but fuck, I guess I’m just sick.
I really admire
this film’s commitment to the reality of its characters instead of manipulating
the audience for the sake of hallow scares or false tension. And I like the realism with which the story
was handled. I felt it was a good
treatment of outcasts instead of the usual aren’t-freaks-beautiful-? Tim
Burton approach. So overall, I enjoyed
the movie and feel it’s the best Swedish vampire lovestory I’ve seen.
If you liked this, here are some other
recommended writings for you to read, making them readings:
Cello:
A Movie About an Evil Cello
Do you like Asian
horror? This might be the best Asian horror film about an evil cello yet.
The horror movie that calls you back and chokes your cat.
Bloody Bird: A Film About an Owl that Kills Actors with a
Chainsaw
This film was also released as “Stagefright”, “Deleria”, and
“Aquarius”,
but you didn’t see it under those names either.