Let The Right One In (2008)

VERDICT:
8/10 First Loves

Since it seems like everyone is at the point of shitting themselves right now at the mere thought of another Twilight movie in the near future, and since I don’t get it, seems like the perfect opportunity to take a look back at my favorite vampire movie of 2008.

Let The Right One In is about a Swedish kid with a bleach-blonde mop top that gets continually picked on at school and never fights back. Then one day, this nice little girl moves in next door, they hit it off over a rubik’s cube (naturally), she gives him the confidence he needs to stand up for himself, and then she drops a bomb on him and reveals that she’s a vampire.

Women…

But turns out, that’s cool. The kid’s in love, doesn’t make a difference to him. Not every day you find a girl who digs Rubik’s cubes.

So as you can probably already tell, this is an interesting kind of vampire movie. It works as both a gory horror movie and a young love story that ends up being surprisingly genuine and actually seems natural after a while. Not counting all the blood-drinking and murderous tendencies, it’s pretty easy see why the two kids like each other so much. Personally, I’m attracted to women who can go outside during the day time and not burn to ash, but hey, whatever floats your boat.

And that’s the other thing this movie has going for it: great kid actors. They really play to the script’s subtle strengths and after a while it doesn’t really feel like they’re acting at all, but rather just behaving around each other the way they would if the camera wasn’t even there. Kids in love is just an entertaining thing to watch.

They’re good characters and it’s nice to sit back and watch them grow on each other. They make the whole thing believable.

Let The Right One In is very atypical of a vampire movie in that there aren’t all too many scares that actually make you jump out of your seat. It instead focuses more on maintaining a brooding, eerie vibe that lingers and heightens as the body count rises and people start realizing that there might be a vampire shacking up in town…and she might be ten.

It’s a pro and a con, but it works for what it is. All kind of depends what you’re looking for I guess, but shouldn’t be a reason to not see this.

So it might not be the scariest movie out there, but Let The Right One In is a damn good vampire movie that should have gotten a lot more attention than it did this past year. It’s a cool new take on the genre that’s very well-made and has a lot of crazy scenes that will stick with you for a long while after.

If only all vampires were so cute…and Swedish.