Let the Right One In

Last Friday night I saw the Swedish horror film Let the Right One In. It's one of the very few horror films to come out of Scandinavia, and of course Dead Snow is on its way too, so maybe this is the sign of a renaissance of horror films from the bitter cold of Norway and Sweden?

Let the Right One In has made many horror "Best of..." lists for it's great story that makes the vampire elements secondary and incidental. It's boy-meets-girl in a very simplistic and pure approach. The boy is 12 and is a bullied only child from two divorced parents. The dad provides little structure and the mom is left to basically be the iron fist, preventing her from finding a healthy balance between discipline and friendship that every parent needs. It's not a healthy environment and the boy has no self esteem or confidence. He lies about bruises and cuts from his bullying at school.

Enter the girl, a seeming 12 years old herself, but really she's a 100+ year old vampire who moved into the apartment next door. They meet in the courtyard one night and a tentative friendship begins to form, even though each one makes sure to tell the other how disinterested in having friends they are. The rapport between the two kids is great, and it's funny to watch them being children, then realizing that one of them has been around for centuries. In the background there are townsfolk reacting to the various murders perpetrated by the vampire's adult "helper". The movie moves at its own pace, which might be a bit slow for some, but the story is genuinely touching and the gore factor is something you forget about between the sparse, but vivid, bloodlettings.

Half-way through the movie, which follows very classic vampire mythology and rules, it becomes apparent that the title has a three-fold meaning: the girl is an old vampire and has to be careful who she trusts, the boy is also careful about who he "lets in" because of his experiences with bullies and alienation from his parents, and they each have to be careful about who they let in to their personal living spaces. A vampire cannot enter a dwelling unless he/she has been invited, and we find out what happens when they try without that formal invitation. The boy needs to be careful who he lets into his room, and he makes a good choice with the girl; she is a vampire in whom he can trust and confide.

A hesitant camaraderie becomes a fast friendship, even though the boy doesn't really catch on to the true nature of his friend until wall into the final third of the film. (Watch the sparks fly when he decides they should be "blood-brothers" and cuts his palm in front of her.) She looks out for him, and in the end he has to do the same for her. They both reach depths of feeling that they never knew existed before.

The dark, long winter of Sweden makes for a fantastic and unsettling backdrop. Snow has never looked so beautiful, yet after watching a movie like 30 Days of Night, you're reminded of how long those nights can last in the winter months and how that can drain hope and joie de vivre. The most suicides occur in the winter, and I can rightly assume, the most vampiric killings. Let the Right One In is a beautiful film with a beautiful story. It has horror elements, but when you leave the theater you'll only be thinking of the great coming together of two beings who found friendship, not the eerie scenes of blood-sucking.