Deeper than Twilight: A Review of Let the Right One In by Tomas Alfredson (Sweden)

I've loved vampire stories for as long as I've been able to read. I know that this is the case for many people, or Twilight would never have done as well as it did as a book series or a movie.

But if you're like me and Twilight left a gaping hole in your mind that needs filling, try Let the Right One In. It's out now on DVD and surprisingly easy to find. This Swedish horror/romance film by director Tomas Alfredson takes the traditional vampire story and filters it out into its simpler pieces. In the world of suburban Stockholm in the 1980's, vampires aren't nearly as beautiful and seductive as their Twilight counterparts. Both the immortals and their prey wander aimlessly in the dreary, snow-covered town trying to survive.

The screenplay and significantly darker novel on which the movie is based both come from author John Ajvide Lindqvist. Eli is a strange twelve-year-old vampire who comes to live next door to scrawny, bullied, unsettlingly blond Oskar. Both kids seem to have their own deep-seated problems to deal with, but they realize that together they might be able to help each other out. Both need protection, Oskar from half-hearted but dangerous bullies and Eli from locals who might figure out exactly what she is and destroy her when she is vulnerable (i.e. during the day).

I always find it interesting to see which aspects of the multifaceted vampire myth that a story-teller chooses to adopt. Eli is really the only vampire in the film, aside from one unfortunate victim, and we learn through her that vampires do not age and must stay out of the sun, not because they sparkle, but because they will burst into hugely dramatic flames. Lindqvist also includes one of the lesser known myths, that a vampire cannot enter a person's home unless invited in. After Oskar taunts Eli and dares her to come in uninvited, Eli decides to show him the consequences. I won't give it away for you, but it definitely looks unpleasant for little Eli.

The film has a pretty slow pace, but Kare Hedebrant (Oskar) and Lina Leandersson (Eli) are great kid actors that seem to share an intimacy that most adult actors can't fake. The death scenes that earn the movie its horror classification are thrilling but not overly violent. The American version of the DVD has a few issues, though, that viewers might need to take into account. The dubbed English version sounds like a cartoon and ruins the subtlety of this quiet film, but the subtitles are a bit oversimplified and miss some of the small exchanges that the dubbed version includes. I would suggest watching both versions, but subtitles are definitely the better way to go if you're a normal human being and don't want to sit through both. The performances by Hedebrant and Leandersson are good enough that you'd definitely be missing out not to hear the dialogue directly. Although, technically, you won't be hearing Leandersson's voice as the filmmakers decided to overdub her with a more androgynous voice.

There are also many plot details, such as character back-stories and relationships, which are left out of the film, leaving much open to viewer interpretation. It's actually pretty fun to make your own inferences about the film as it is, but if you want to know more about the darker aspects, you should read the book, or at least the cliff note's version, the FAQ at the IMDB page here.