(Lat Den Ratte Komma In)

Directed by Thomas Alfredson
Starring Kare Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson

★★★★

I’ll begin with a personal claim that many may find haste and irrational; there are two stories you need to know regarding the vampire myth; one is Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and the other is John Ajvide Lindqvist’s Let the Right One In. I base this claim on the fact that upon seeing this superb film adaptation of the latter book, I have not known the vampire myth to be so poetically and emotionally enacted since the former masterpiece, which to many, is the very origin of the modern vampire yarn.

Set in Stockholm during the winter of 1982, the story concerns Oskar, a lonely 12 year boy, who endures extreme bullying at school and spends virtually all of his free time by himself. He either plays in the yard in the dark evenings or collects murder headlines from newspapers and fantasises about acting out revenge on his tormentors. That is, until the sudden arrival of Eli, the girl next door of the same age who is accompanied by a mysterious and much older male companion. Oskar is at once drawn to Eli and a bond between the pair quickly develops, as he entertains her (a Rubik’s cube lesson is a particular nostalgic highlight) and she encourages him to stand up to the bullies.
What Oskar does not know is that Eli is a vampire, suspended in her childhood state for over 200 years and condemned to feed on human blood in order to survive.
Flawless performances from the two leads and wonderfully eerie cinematography make for compulsive viewing with plenty to ponder along the way. Most notably the tragedy of her older accomplice, who’s sole existence appears to be to kill (and drain) her hapless victims.

The vampire film has, for far too long, digressed from the haunting, tragic and (more often than not) doomed romantic story so well portrayed in Bram Stoker’s classic or in the initial screening of that book, Nosferatu. Most attempts to date have relied solely on the horror aspect and the clichéd trappings of the genre. What truly separates this one from the rest is how brilliantly it chooses when and when not to eschew the familiarities, playing equally to the knowledge you already have while also adding some of its own, all the time keeping you locked in its grim social reality.

There is talk of whether or not Let the Right One In is really a horror movie.
I say it certainly is; just one with an emotional depth rarely seen in its contempories. Highly recommended.