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Let the Right One In Movie Review

Let the Right One In is a 2008 Swedish romantic horror film directed by Tomas Alfredson. It is an exhaustingly cold, yet very effective genre film.

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“I’m twelve. But I’ve been twelve for a long time“

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Oskar, an overlooked and bullied boy, finds love and revenge through Eli, a beautiful but peculiar girl. She is, though, forever young because she is a vampire. She then becomes his protector. This film was a major breakthrough back in 2008 and it even received a US remake. Many praised it for being the best modern vampire film and it definitely belongs in that conversation.

What I respected here the most is the immense realism on display. The movie is a vampire story, but it is very much real due to it being set in this specific place and time period and being restrained within the teen drama storyline that is also about bullying. You can also attach many different metaphors when it comes to the movie’s protagonist, making the movie very relatable for wider audiences.

Oskar and Eli are just wonderful. She is sweet, but also definitely a scary monster when unleashed. He is this timid, overly scared boy who just wants to be left alone. It was fascinating seeing a girl protect a boy instead of the other way around. That dynamic made the movie very unique.

The acting from both of the child actors is surprisingly competent and fantastic all around. The other characters were underdeveloped, but they served the larger story decently enough. The dialogue is also excellent and the mixing of the drama and horror elements with the romantic ones was mostly very well handled. The highlight was obviously the pool sequence in the end. It is an instantly iconic scene for the genre and a perfect ending for this movie.

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Let the Right One In is technically stupendous. The directing is strong, the screenplay is very well adapted from its source material and the movie’s cinematography is absolutely amazing, perfectly encapsulating the coldness at its center. Still, it was a bit too cold and dark for my taste while the slow pace of the first half made it difficult to be invested in it at first.