Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Let the Right One In is the Best Vampire Movie In Quite a While

I had never even heard of this movie until this weekend when my sister posted about on her blog. Since we have relatively the same taste in movies I thought I would give it a try. So I added the movie to my insta-queue on Netflix, made some lunch and sat down and watched it this afternoon. I was impressed.

The movie is Swedish and the subtitles almost had me turning it off. I like to read and I like to watch movies but I rarely, if ever, do I like to do both at the same time. I am glad that I stuck it out though. Vampires are pretty creepy by themselves but a little kid vamp is really really creepy.  And bonus points for the following:

  1. No Sparkles!
  2. Attack Kittys!
  3. Acid attack!

The movie is about isolation and loneliness and the Swedish winter really is a great supporting character. I read some reviews of the movie saying it was a “love story” and it really didn't strike me as that at all. It seemed to me that the little vamp needed to replace it's serial killer caretaker with another would-be psycho and it found exactly what it needed right next door with the Oskar the poor picked on little piggy that fantasizes about stabbing the shit out of the school bullies.

The other reason I don't think this was intended to be a love story....that ain't no little girl. At least not in the book (from what I understand). This is never explained in the movie though so I am not sure if the director wanted you to think it was a girl or not...I am thinking that much of the backstory ended up on the cutting room floor. It does seem that a whole helluva lot was left out of the story that was in the book but going into the movie without that knowledge probably was a good thing.

The special effects are so understated that suspension of disbelief is really easy. The pool scene was so well done that it was incredibly gory without ever really seeing anything happening.

All in all, this is a great little movie and I really recommend you get this into your insta-queue.

In case you are interested, here is a link the trailer

1 comment:

  1. I wholeheartedly agree that this is one of the best vampire movie out there. I also recommend you check out a Korean vampire movie called Thirst. It was directed by Park Chan-wook who also did the Revenge Trillogy (Oldboy, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, and Lady Vengeance). Thirst is pretty twisted in its own way, so you might want to read a plot summary or critical review if you are sensative.

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