Review: Let The Right One In

Alright guys. Before we start, elephant in the room. You may or may not know Let The Right One In is a romance/vampire film, and you WILL know that, last year, a very popular and very high-profile romance/vampire film was released. It was almost impossible for me, as I watched Let The Right One In to not compare it to Twilight in my critical consideration. The concepts are undeniably similar, and I believe it's this coupled with the fact Let The Right One In is Swedish that caused the film to go largely unnoticed in a mainstream audience.

Let The Right One In opens in a small Swedish town. It is 1982 and Oskar finds himself bullied daily. He spends his nights planning and practicing violent revenge against his attackers. One night, while out stabbing trees, he meets Eli. Who's a vampire, just so you know.

What follows is a bleak, heartbreaking, solid, beautiful and real story of the two. It's gripping and intensely frightening, even without the horror subplot. Most of the credit here has to go to the two young actors who play Oskar and Eli (Kåre Hedebrant and Lina Leandersson) who give performances that actors 6 times their age would be commended for.

The film itself is written to perfection. Subtle indications of a character's fate/nature are alluded to and then never mentioned again, leaving it to you to piece together some of the facts. The dialogue is affecting and low-key, in keeping with the colour palette and soundtrack. This is not a horror that relies on CGI or jump-out-of-your-seat moments which, given some of the scenes, it very well could have been. When CGI is finally used in an obvious sense, it doesn't quite work and transports you out of the film for a short while, before quickly rediscovering its pace.

By far the best thing about Let The Right One In is the seamless integration of a real horror story with a real love story. While it isn't a blend by any means, both are represented side-by-side and complement each other until the very end. One minute you find yourself reeling at one of the very graphic horror scenes (one guy gets half his face burned off at one point. It's mental. Worse than Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight) and the next moment Eli and Oskar are standing on either side of a window, following each others handprints while I sit, 8 inches from the screen in hysterical tears shouting "LOVE EXISTS AND IT'S BEAUTIFUL".

Inevitably, things start to go tits-up for everyone and, as the film concludes we are treated to one of the best scenes in film of the last, well... ever. It's shocking, disturbing and just a little pleasing. The film ends on a high, but deliberately leaves a bloody trail behind it. Come the finale, morality grips and we find ourselves wondering if the bloodshed was worth it for the freedom of our protagonists.

Watch it, I beg you. Forget the subtitles and just get lost in the story. It's so worth it.

*****
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