Let the Right One In

Twelve-year-old Oskar, lonely at home and bullied at school, lives a quietly bleak life with his mother in a Stockholm suburb. Until he meets the new girl next door, the otherworldly Eli. The two children form an intense bond, playing and exchanging Morse code messages through the wall of their apartments. As they grow closer, Oskar’s enigmatic new friend encourages him to finally make a stand against the bullies who torment him at school, and brings happiness and the first stirrings of love to his previously lonely existence. But Eli is not an ordinary little girl, she has a dark secret that will bring inhuman terror into the children’s world of play. And as innocence and bloodshed mix, Eli’s uncontrollable thirst engulfs the pair in a terrifying nightmare.

Based upon the novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist, Let the Right One In is a clever mix of love story and supernatural horror that skilfully interweaves blood and bitter sweetness, and reintroduces a sense of genuine terror to a genre that has come to be dominated by action blockbuster franchises such as Underworld and Blade. Against its bleak and beautiful Swedish backdrop, the film paints a story of developing love which sits unnervingly within nightmarish horror, the juxtaposition of heart-warming and blood-splattering, and the quiet, restrained way in which it is all presented, creating an atmosphere at once mesmerizing and deeply disturbing.

Hailed for its hauntingly beautiful cinematography, powerful performances from the two child leads and masterful musical score, Let the Right One In is both a tender meditation on friendship and alienation, and the most genuinely scary vampire film in decades. See it before the inevitable American remake comes out next year.

David Gorman