Review: Let the Right One in

Last Updated on July 27, 2021

PLOT:

Oskar is the prototypical bullied boy – friendless, isolated, not without charm and imagination. He spends his free time playing with a knife, although he’s not the type to freak out. The kind of kid who just seems weird even though he really isn’t… One day, he meets his new neighbor: a 12 year old girl named Eli, who seems weird because she is weird. She’s a
vampire.

REVIEW:
Tomas Alfredson’s sensitive, twisted coming-of-age fairy tale LET THE RIGHT ONE IN is the kind of horror movie we love to see from time to time, one that doesn’t wear its genre on its sleeve or fill the screen with hellish imagery just because it can. Oh don’t worry, it does, and when it does it’s potent. But this is more in the vein of the quieter Guillermo Del Toro films like THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE – where supernatural chills fit snugly next to the all too real horrors of
adolescence. It’s also very “Swedish” if you can dig that.

What at first appears to be a somber affair reveals itself to have impressive dexterity of tone. LET THE RIGHT ONE IN moves from whimsical, to sad, to darkly funny, to shockingly gruesome – and everything in between and back again – with surprising ease. Alfredson gives us many striking images: a man half-frozen in ice, a woman – hilariously, horrifyingly – besieged by a swarm of cats, a head gently plopping into a pool, a startling glimpse of a scar…

As grotesque as it sounds (and sometimes is) the ethereal mood and deliberate pace keep the film from becoming a
freak-show. If I had to use a word to describe LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, it would be “haunting.” And that’s the kind of horror movie we love to see from time to time…

My rating 8.5/10 —
Eric Walkuski