Let The Right One In

Let The Right One In (Lat Den Ratte Komma In) (2008)

98% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 145 reviews)

Runtime: 115 minutes

Directed by: Tomas Alfredson

Starring: Kare Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson, Per Ragnar, Henrik Dahl

From: Magnolia Pictures/EFTI

I figured that with this time of the season, I should talk about at least one horror flick on here, right? I’d like to do a few before Halloween but my schedule may be too busy to allow me to do so. I do at least have the time to talk about this flick, one from Sweden that I saw in early November last year on the big screen at the Enzian when it was one of the first places in the U.S. to start regularly showing it.

It was a movie I heard VERY high praise for at Dread Central so I decided to go and see it, and it was a great experience seeing it projected like that.

Now, it’s a tale about someone young who feels alienated and alone in a town but suddenly they meet someone and they develop a romance but it turns out that the love interest is a vampire. I could be talking about Twilight but I’m not in this case; rather, that’s the plot to this movie. Let me copy and paste what I wrote about it at the time on a MySpace/Facebook blog:

“As for the movie I saw, I went to the arty Enzian Theater in Orlando (technically, Maitland) to watch a romantic vampire horror film from Sweden; yes, that's the best way to describe it. Its known in English as Let The Right One In. It's a movie based on a Swedish book which is about a 12 year old boy who is the bullied type and he meets a girl who is also 12… or at least looks 12… and he quickly realizes that she's more than a little weird. I won't say too much more about it or give out any SPOILERS~! Just note that it's more a romantic tale with horror elements in it, and yet it's awesomely shot and put together. No kidding, it probably will be the best movie I see this year, and that's not an exaggeration. It's at the Enzian tonight and tomorrow and then it'll be gone, but at the very least you should see it when it comes out on DVD, as it's a really awesome flick and I'm sure it's a million times better than those God-awful Saw movies or-sigh-that Hot Topic film Twilight, based on the Hot Topic fanbase-loving book of the same name.”

I stand by what I said then about it being the best film I saw that was released in 2008. Yes, even better than The Dark Knight, so that is saying quite a bit there.

What makes it so great is the marvelous storytelling, the pacing, and the performances from the two young leads, who as far as I can tell made their acting debuts with this. They did a tremendous job if you consider that factoid. A “romance” between 12 year olds may sound odd but it’s more of a puppy love thing where they like hanging out with each other, you know.

In the midst of their story you get Eli (Leandersson) doing vampire things while also getting to know Oskar (Hedebrant) as hey, that’s what she is. So, you do get to see some violence; it’s nothing like Twilight at all, that’s for damn sure! Also unlike Twilight, this is a much more complex movie than how I’m describing it. I don’t want to give too much away as viewing it while only knowing a little about it makes what you get to see all the better. There are some very memorable moments that will be difficult to forget. It’s a must-see. Note two things, though:

If you rent it or get it on DVD, make sure that you check the back of the box; on the bottom, make sure that it says “English Subtitles” (Theatrical)”, as that is key. When it was originally put out on DVD by Magnolia, instead of using the English subtitles that were used in the theatre, they had overly simplified English subtitles that pissed people off, and for good reason; I saw examples in stills online and yeah, they are insultingly bad and downright ruin the experience of watching it in that format. So, on the DVD I got the first day it came out, when I’ve watched the movie it was the English dubbed version (as the dubbed version uses the English that you saw in the theatrical subtitles), which is fine enough to make the movie still great, but one of these days I’ll bring that DVD and some others to an FYE or whatever and get money from selling it to them, while probably a day or two later get the correct DVD version so that I can finally watch it the same way I did at the Enzian. Trust me, dialogue is an important part of the film and the relationship between Oskar and Eli.

As you might have suspected already, the movie is going to be remade. It’s supposed to come out around this time next year and be known as Let Me In and be closer to the book than the Swedish movie was. There’s a big backlash against the remake in some circles as hey, it will all but fail in comparison to the original film and some things might get toned down when it gets “Americanized” and yeah, I’m not sure myself if Let Me In will be any good, let alone be as great as the original film.

Anyhow, if you haven’t seen this, it’s a must-see; if nothing else, you’ll never forget it.