Let the Right one In is not your typical horror movie. Directed by Tomas Alfredson with screenplay written by John Ajvide Lindqvist. The story follows a 12 year old Oscar who is constantly bullied in school, but gets a second chance at a different life once he meets a peculier girl named Eli. Below is my Let the Right one In (2008) movie review
The casting for the movie took over a year and it was held all over Sweden. The movie had a pretty low budget of 4.5 mil USD. The filmmaker wanted to tone down the horror aspects of the film and focus more on the relationship between Oscar and Eli.
Some elements from the book were completely omitted. This is due to them being controversial and the director did not think he could do it justice. Other things like Eli’s age and her background were not fully explored and were left for the audience’s interpretation. Also, Eli’s sexuality was also something that was left to be interpreted based on her conversation with Oscar.
As I have mentioned, the movie was shot in a non traditional way. It is slow at times and the atmosphere is very subtle. There is very little light to capture this uneasiness of a dark snowy town. It is set during the winter months with it playing a big part in the overall plot.
On top of this there is not a lot of music used throughout the movie. Instead the filmmakers relied on natural sounds of wind, snow, and town sounds to provide its score.
The movie is set in the Stockholm suburb of Blackeberg in 1982. Everything seems to be drained of color to give it a visceral look of doomed hopefulness in an overall bleak town. There doesn’t seem to be much going on which is why Eli’s character comes into picture to brighten Oscar’s life. This makes it a bit odd to say the least knowing what she represents. To Oscar she is a ray of sunshine in an empty world while to others she is quite the opposite. However, Oscar seems to be so trapped and alone that is able to see her as something different or at least he hopes she can be different for the sake of being with him.
The story is touching in many ways but it is also dark. It features some gore as well as some dark elements (look more into Hakan, Eli’s “helper”). His backstory is not explored much and the gore for the most part is not overly graphic. The good thing is that the violence is used to give some meaning to Eli’s character, but the director also chose to focus more on Oscar and Eli’s interactions ro give the story more depth. They are both outcasts in one way or another so the middle ground they find to connect to each other sets it apart from other movies with similar themes.
While the American version of this movie called Let Me In (2010) is really good, I still think this version is much better than the remake.
Thanks for reading my Let the Right one In (2008) movie review
