Tonight’s movie is one of the best vampire films out there. If you just made a list of great vampire films in your head and Let the Right One In was not included, you obviously have not seen it.
Let the Right One In is about a young boy named Oskar who is bullied at school. He has no friends to help him, his mother is never home and his father lives somewhere else and has little to do with him. One night, Oskar meets Eli, a strange girl that lives next door to him with an older man but doesn’t go to his school.
The older man Eli lives with is a killer, drugging and hanging up bodies to drain their blood into a jug. Eli, who walks in the snow barefoot and only comes out at night, needs the blood to survive. As she is too young to take care of herself, she keeps the older man around to do these things for her.
Eli and Oskar begin to get close as her caretaker begins to fail at his job. In Oskar, Eli finds someone new to take care of her and Oskar finds someone to protect him.
There is this one particular scene that always gets me. This man is walking home and hears Eli sobbing in the shadows under a bridge. When he bends down to scoop her up and help her, she springs on him like an animal, draining him of his blood. She seems so innocent and incapable of hurting anyone by her interactions with Oskar but this scene shows the animal inside of her. There is also a swimming pool scene that, alone, is worth watching the film for.
I love that they show the process in which Eli finds a new mate. The man who took care of her obviously was once like Oskar, in love with her and willing to spend his life taking care of her. When she finds someone new, he becomes horribly jealous but is still willing to risk his life for her.
I also really like how they show the effects of certain human things on Eli. For example, she tries a small piece of Oskar’s candy and ends up vomiting almost immediately. She cannot enter a home without being invited first. It is not that she is incapable of entering without an invitation, but to do so makes her bleed out and slowly die.
If you’re in the market for a run of the mill cheesy vampire flick, Let the Right One In is not for you. This film is meant for those looking for something more intellectual. If you are unable to get your hands on this gem, the American remake Let Me In with Chloe Moretz also works but I strongly recommend seeing the original first.
