Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant) + Eli (Lina Leandersson)
A remake by Cloverfield director Matt Reeves is coming soon but it’s hard to see how it can top the Swedish vampire movie ‘Let The Right One In‘ scripted by Ajvide Lindqvist from his own novel and directed by Tomas Alfredson.
The setting in a modern yet drab snowbound suburb of Stockholm is perfect for the chilly atmosphere of the movie and the two young performers as Oskar and Eli are quite exceptional in the lead roles.
Oskar is pale and blonde, almost albino-like; the only child of separated parents and constantly picked on at school. He keeps a scrapbook of murder stories from newspapers and fantasizes about getting even with the bullies (we see him stabbing a tree, saying “squeal like a pig”).
Eli is girl who moves into the adjoining flat. She is 12 (“more or less”) and despite announcing that they cannot be friends they gradually bond as two children who don’t fit in.
Unlike the Twilight saga, there’s no glamorous side to the life of a young vampire. To get fresh blood she either has to find victims herself or find someone to do the killing for her. Even after a ‘meal’, she looks tortured and forlorn.
What makes the movie work is the deliberately flat and unsentimental tone. There are no gratuitous close-ups and splatter effects are kept to a minimum. It is more of a creepy modern-day fable than a traditional horror with the theme of bullying being as central to the story as the life of the vampire.
Highly recommended and The Guardian have already placed it in the top ten of best ever horror movies, effectively making it the second best vampire movie (after 1922’s Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror). Do you agree?
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John Le Carré’s celebrated novel was, by all accounts, confusing enough as a seven part BBC TV series (starring Alec Guinness) but is doubly so when condensed into a two-hour movie.
