On the surface (i.e. if one were to go by its plot skeleton) Let the Right One In might seem like a genre fare what with its tale of a vampire let loose; but scratch a little and what you have is a deeply disturbing and profoundly moving take on adolescence, friendship and growing up. The movie is about a frail, lonely and socially inept 12-year old boy – a regular target of a local bully, lives in a small Swedish town that is as quaint as it is brutally harsh, and who ends up befriending a mysterious girl who has recently moved in next door. He realizes later that the girl is in essence an ageless vampire, but that inescapable fact, instead of acting as a barrier in their burgeoning relationship, ends up adding deeper layers and philosophical undertones to it. The movie, in the tradition of great revisionist genre films, has completely deconstructed the myth, romance and horror associated with traditional vampire flicks. Though unabashed in its depiction of blood and violence, there isn’t any glamour associated with it for the simple reason that it never aspires to be spine-chilling (though it nonetheless is) in the conventional sense. Consequently what you have is a remarkable, complex, visually stunning, hauntingly eerie, deeply melancholic and starkly beautiful movie that deserves a standing ovation.
Director: Tomas Alfredson
Genre: Drama/Horror
Language: Swedish
Country: Sweden
