Let The Right One In (2008)

[BTM]

I know, the title makes it sound like a love story, and I suppose you could say it is, in a sense.

The film takes place in a village in Sweden.  Twelve year old Oskar is a lonely boy, who's the constant target of bullying at his school.  Soon a new girl, Eli moves next door in his apartment complex and they slowly become friends.  Oskar soon discovers that his new friend is a vampire.

Dunno if I can praise this film enough, it's beautifully shot and directed, with two excellent performances by the young leads.  Although the supernatural is part of the story, the main focus of the film is on the relationship between Oskar and Eli.

Just read that there's going to be an English remake of the film (cause, you know, you can't have a successful foreign film without someone overseas trying to recreate it), but I recommend you see this one first, as it's a very good film.

That is all!  :)

[The Burgomaster]

I have wanted to see this movie ever since I first heard about it a month or two ago.  The English remake will surely be crap, so I'll probably avoid it.

[BTM]

I have wanted to see this movie ever since I first heard about it a month or two ago.  The English remake will surely be crap, so I'll probably avoid it.

Well, it's on Netflix, if you have that. 

Oh, I didn't know this earlier, but the movie is also based on a book of the same title (also called Let Me In when it was first published).  Told the book goes into more background detail on the various characters as is often the case, the movie had to truncate a lot of information for the sake of its running time.

[Jim H]

Thought it was quite good.  Wonderfully acted, great storytelling.  There's also more gore than I expected - not to say it's really gore, but what is there is very effective.  Just very nice, and shot in a sort of old fashioned kind of way - lots of longer takes.  Very nice.

[Torgo]

I picked this up a couple of days ago. I haven't had a chance to watch it yet though.  I'll probably get around to it this weekend and then I'll post some thoughts about it.

[peter johnson]

The wife and I saw it a few days ago -- Brrr!  That thing sticks with you!  I want to talk about it , but don't want to do the spoiler thing, so if you haven't seen it & read this far, STOP!!




One thing that occurred to me while watching it:  I was very confused at first as to the role of the older fellow taking care of Eli at the beginning of the film, but then it struck me midway through:  "Oh, my God!!  He used to be what Oskar is now!!  Her playdate that fell for her!!!"  This was confirmed by the final scene, where you see Oskar and Eli running away together.  Oskar will come to a horrible end just like the earlier man did.  That made the film all the more chilling to us.  It also makes sense of the puzzling scene wherein the older guy tells Eli he doesn't want her seeing Oskar -- He's jealous.

The sequence where the bully's older brother is eviscerated at the swimming pool & you see his head floating down underwater is one of the scariest deaths I've ever seen in a film.

We loved the minimal use of CGI for the cat-attack sequence & the highly feral vampire attacks of Eli.

One thing that still bothers me/puzzles me about the film was the highly public way in which her helper is killing people.  I mean, hanging people up on well-lit public walkways, with visible cars in the background??  And that bit in the locker room -- man, why so public?  It is as if he's trying to get caught so he can leave his life, which he ultimately does.

peter johnson/denny crane

[Torgo]

***1/2 out of 4.  Wow. This is one film that will stick with you long after you watch it.  Highly original and stunning visually, almost like if Stanley Kubrick had directed a vampire movie.  The movie is extremely slow moving though which some folks might view as a negative but I loved the methodical pacing.  There's only a couple of areas where they maybe could have tightened it up a bit. SEE THIS FILM!

[The Burgomaster]

Is this the movie that has the theme song that goes:

"You let the right one in, you let the right one out
You let the right one in, and you shake it all about,
You do the hokey-pokey . . ."

??????

[peter johnson]

Burg -- different picture -- You're thinking of "Gumby:  The Psycho Stalker" --

peter johnson/denny crane