Let the Right One In (2008)

Oskar is a twelve-year old boy often bullied by his classmates. The son of separated parents, he likes spending most of the time alone. One day he meets a girl named Eli, also twelve years old, who had just moved in next door to the compound where he lives. As they get to meet almost every night, the two end up liking each other until finally they realize that they’re in love. The conflict? Eli is a vampire.

Arguably the “most original” story ever to be translated to the screen this year “Let the Right One In” is a beautiful, haunting tale of a boy’s experience of first love. By the book, “Let the Right One In” is technically a horror film; however, as one gets to experience the poignant treatment of the film’s director Tomas Alfredson with the classic vampire myth, one instantly falls in love with it as it truly is a timeless romantic tale that transcends the boundaries of the horror genre. Frankly speaking, there is nothing else like it.

As the word “horror” itself denotes, a horror film is bound to elicit a sense of dread, fear, trembling. Indeed “Let the Right One In” does all that plus more. Watching the film, one becomes awestruck with the delicate balancing of both genres of horror and romance. With its rich visuals, the film presents the viewers a different kind of emotion seeing images, which might elicit a different kind of feeling if you’ve seen it somewhere else. Scenes of violence are performed in the typical fashion but how they’re treated is different from traditional savagery – there’s a certain kind of subtlety that lets you feel something else apart from pure and simple terror. Truly, the film is visual poetry that grapples its audience and then rewards with a unique kind of experience that is just simply nothing short of beautiful.

The film offers a number of memorable scenes in its entirety but it’s the ending that truly gave me a plethora of emotions. In the film’s concluding scene, Oskar is once again bullied: The brother of one of his classmates, Connie, challenged Oskar to hold his breath underwater for three minutes – if he’s able to do so, he will only scratch him with his knife; otherwise, he’ll take his eye out as payment for his brother’s ear, which Oskar hit earlier as revenge for their ill-treatment towards him. The fragile boy that he is, Oskar does nothing but follow the older boy as he tries his best to hold his breath while the bully holds him by the head. We see intercuts of Oskar underwater, the bullies and a clock; later on we are kept back to just Oskar, now having much difficulty sustaining his breath. Before he even gets to escape, we see a head fall into the water. Few seconds later, we then see the brother’s mutilated hand float away from Oskar’s head – Eli had rescued him, just as she told him earlier. Quite indeed, there’s no other horror film where you have the main protagonist and “the monster” both alive up to the film’s end.

Magnificently shot and well-acted by the two children who played Oskar and Eli, “Let the Right One In” is bound to be talked about in the years and decades to come. This Swedish film is just truly a rare gem that doesn’t really come quite often and watching it is definitely a genuinely, wonderful experience. Original, provocative and enchanting, “Let the Right One In” easily goes down in my book as one of, if not the best film of 2008.