Let the Right One In
(Reviewed on 11/11/2009)
The Begging To Be Let In
ROSSMAN
Kids can be creepy — never let anyone tell you otherwise. If there's one thing the Swedish film Let the Right One In does right it's showing you just how insanely terrifying and sinister children can be. Fortunately director Tomas Alfredson's movie does more than just one thing right, but damn, those kids is freaky.
Vampire movies are almost as old as the medium itself, and the supernatural creatures in the various flicks made throughout the years vary in their powers and abilities and inner-story legends in almost as many ways as there are separate movies themselves. What I mean to say is that almost no two movies about vamps treat the subject in the exact same way. For example, you have the idea that vampires are victims of a biological virus (a la Blade), that they come from one man who made a pact with the Devil (Bram Stoker's Dracula), or that they're glittering faggots who don't need human blood to survive and who look like pouty J Crew models and love sunlight.... Sorry, I forgot, those aren't real vampires, they're just preteen maturbatory tools.
Anyway, Let the Right One In goes for the more traditional take on vampirism (meaning its vamps are incendiarily allergic to sunlight, must feed on the blood of the living, and are forever trapped inside their bodies at whatever age they were turned), and it treats the subject as seriously as I've ever seen it handled before; but the idea of vampires isn't even the main aspect of the story — that would be the friendship/love between dorky 12 year-old Oskar, and his new neighbor in his shitty apartment building, the young, androgynous Eli.
So the story goes a little something like this: Oskar is a weenie of a kid living in some Swedish shithole town with his smothering mother in a rundown apartment building. He's getting picked on by a bully at school who loves to call him a piggy (why? I don't know... Oskar is skinny as a rail and not chubby in the least. Honestly I'd have made fun of his girlish locks if I were the tough kid), and he likes to hang out in his bedroom, looking out the window while in nothing but his underwear... If that isn't creepy I don't know what is.
Anyway, soon he gets a new neighbor — two in fact, a girl his age and her weird guardian. After a few nighttime encounters wherein Oskar makes some awkward young teen advances on the girl (who introduces herself as Eli), he finally starts to make progress over their shared love of puzzles (well, only Eli is any good at them, but you have to give props to Oskar for his attempts). Soon they become BFFs, but all is not well in Whoville, seeing as Eli's papa/uncle/child-predator guardian starts killing people and draining them of all their blood. We're never led to believe that he's a vamp though, so I'm not spoiling shit by telling you he's doing this all for Eli, who pushes him around and treats him like the absolute slimeball that he truly is (if you read the book you find out that this guy's a total pedo, and he's only hanging around the centuries-old Eli for the slight hope that, well, Jesus, he's a fucking perv, let's leave it at that).
Okay, so this guardian guy has a hard-on for Eli, but he keeps fucking up trying to score her some crimson-bubbly, so she eventually has to go out and suck some poor schmuck dry herself, but the poor doofus she sucks (then snaps his neck) had a friend who saw the whole thing, then on the guardian's next attempt to score some human wine he gets caught by a ton of the victim's friends, and he uses a bottle of acid to fuck up his face so that nobody can trace him back to his beloved Eli... Seriously, you menstruating fuck-up Twilight fans, you need to watch a REAL vampire movie like this to see how this stuff is really done. Meaning HARDCORE and not namby-pamby.
Okay, so during all this Eli and Oskar the pussy start getting along really great, and she even convinces him that he needs to stand up to the faggot bully who's been terrorizing him at school, and so on a field trip to a frozen lake (Christ, Sweden, we at least got to go to the St. Louis Arch during field trips as a kid) Oskar smacks the living shit out of his tormentor with a stick and he starts to feel really good about himself, until he figures out what's up with Eli and her dirty little secret... Well, she's actually got a few, but the one I'm talking about is her being a vampire (though her OTHER little secret is even dirtier... DIRTY dirty!). Honestly, one of the coolest scenes in a vampire movie ever filmed comes when Oskar finds out WHY you have to purposefully invite a vampire into your house in order for the fuckers to enter. Absolutely beautiful!
The ending was good too. Shit comes back full circle when the bully has his older and completely psychotic brother corner Oskar at the town pool and threaten to cut the fuck out of Oskar if he doesn't hold his breath underwater for 3 minutes (the brother's hand firmly holding poor Oskarina's head a foot below the surface). But I've spoiled enough, and I really want you to watch this movie, so I won't tell you about the lycan pack that attacks everybody and turns them all into werewolves in the last 5 minutes of the story. Holy fuck it is so awesome!
The WOLFMAN
Likes (to eat) Children
Kids suck... Well, I guess that's why they make GREAT vampires! Huh?!? HUH?!?! Wokka wokka wokka!
DR. DAVE (with the plan)
I've been telling everyone who'll listen for years now that children are the Devil. NOW will you people believe me!? Quick, before it becomes too late! Burn them all! It's the only way!
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