In all of the films that I’ve seen, I threw words around such as “amazing,” “brilliant,” and “kickass.” I’ve seen films that I would consider to be “fantastic” and “great,” but I have also seen films that I would consider to be “terrible” and “worthless.” But there is one word that I don’t use much. Actually, I only used it once in my life, and it was to describe my all-time favorite film, “Sin City.” That word is “magnificent,” and yesterday, I used it a second time.

Last night, I saw the ultimate film of the year. “Let the Right One In” is a daring and horrifying film, but it is masterful and poetic in every way. It is beautiful and filled of love, but it is also one of the most realistic fantasy films I have ever seen. This is something that I wasn’t expecting. I have gotten people to go see films in the past, but I’m making everyone go see this one little film. It is magnificent. Once the word gets out that “Let the Right One In” is the best film of the year, I guarantee you that you will never forget this film. It will be engraved in your memory and you’ll never lose it. And after the film ends, you’ll want to watch it again, and again, and again.

Simply, “Let the Right One In” is a masterpiece.

Oskar (Kare Hedebrant) lives with his mother in an apartment complex who is frequently picked on by school bullies. He carries around a knife for self-defense but never uses it, and saves newspaper clippings on violent crimes that have occurred. In the apartment next door, a little girl Eli (Lina Leandersson) and her father Hakan (Per Ragnar) have moved in. Oskar and Eli begin talking on the jungle-gym in front of their complex, and they start becoming great friends. But Eli is hiding a huge secret – she’s a vampire. And it is only a matter of time until Oskar finds out…

“Let the Right One In” is based off a novel by John Lindqvist, who also penned the screenplay. He very well knows his own material, and instead of showing a horror flick that contains jumpy moments, he creates a more psychological film that causes you to look deeper into the characters’ relationships with one another.

The relationship between Eli and Hakan is pretty complex, but it is just right to examine. Her father and Eli live off of blood, and it is Hakan’s job to go get the blood. But Hakan asks, when is enough enough? Hakan and Eli have to travel from city to city so they can get away from the crime that they have caused, but Hakan is tired of living the life. In a scene in which the film takes a right turn, Hakan asks Eli to kill him so Eli could survive and live by herself. It is a beautiful and poetic scene of just how much her father really does care.

When it comes to Oskar and Eli, we are seeing one of the most compelling relationships of the decade. Here is Oskar, who is defenseless and is just looking for a friend. When Eli comes along, she puts a little bit of life into Oskar. You can tell as the film progresses how much Oskar changes once she comes along. He begins to grow a little bit more self-confident and starts standing up for himself more. He feels comfortable around her and even asks her to be his girlfriend. Once he discovers that she is a vampire, he doesn’t feel the least bit forsaken.

The same goes for Eli. When she and Oskar first began talking, there was a sense of awkwardness in their relationship. Later on in the film, you can tell how much she has fallen in love with him, and it makes it hard for her to keep traveling around Sweden while leaving him behind. A scene comes where Oskar purposely stabs himself in the thumb so he can show just how committed he is to their relationship, and Eli jumps all over his blood while screaming for him to leave. It shows how she doesn’t want anything bad to happen to him. Remember when I said that “Wall-E” was one of the greatest love-stories ever told? This very well just may be the GREATEST.

There are a few little subplots here and there that make the film a lot more interesting. It describes the power that she has even more and shows just how hard it is to maintain it. Now, I haven’t read the book, and apparently, there is a little “thought” in the book that Eli was a boy at one time. Maybe the book dives into the topic a lot more, but the film questions throughout the flick such as whether or not Eli is a boy or a girl. There is a little “shot” that leaves us questioning, but the film doesn’t dive into it anymore than that. There is so much to look for the next time I watch it.

“Let the Right One In” is a fascinating film that has so much to offer. It is too bad that it is being remade in the next couple years, but I’ll never forget this film. I want everyone to see this movie. I want everyone to feel the same way that I did.

Apparently, ‘tis the season not just for Santa Claus, but for vampires, too.  Two vampire films have been released during this holiday season, and the vampires have gotten younger. The first is Twilight, based on Stephanie Meyer’s book of the same name—a horror/love story about two teenaged, star-crossed lovers, one of whom is a vampire. The second is the Swedish film, Let the Right One In, based on a book by John Ajvide Lindqvist, who also wrote the screenplay.  While Twilight is an entertaining if ultimately disappointing movie it is formulaic and predictable. Let the Right One In, on the other hand, defies easy classification simply because there is nothing remotely predictable about it, which is why, though it is a story about a girl vampire, I hesitate to label it a genre film—it breaks the genre’s conventions. It is truly in a class all its own.

As the snow falls gently against an inky-black sky, a boy stares out the window of his apartment building onto the courtyard below. Somewhere in the distance, a man and a young girl drive along the streets of the city, the tires crunching in the snow—their destination, that same apartment building. And so, just like the witch in Shakespeare’s Macbeth predicts, “. . . something wicked this way comes.”

There has been a rash of grisly murders in town, and the police are stumped. Meanwhile, Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant), a lonely and introverted 12 year-old boy, has some problems of his own. His parents are divorced and he clearly adores his father, whom he doesn’t see often enough. But his biggest problem is his nasty classmate Conny and his reluctant toadies who bully him every day at school. “Squeal, squeal like a pig!” Conny cruelly commands Oskar.

Oscar yearns for revenge against his tormenters. One night, he goes out into the snow-covered courtyard, and brandishing a knife, rehearses the way he would retaliate against Conny and his followers, if he could. He turns to find he is being watched by a mysterious, dark haired girl named Eli (Lina Leandersson), who turns out to be Oskar’s new next-door neighbor. Eli tells Oskar, “I can’t be your friend.” Regardless, the two strike up an unlikely and unusual friendship, two lonely children seeking love and connection. Eli even helps Oskar learn to fight back.

Eli’s adult companion, the equally mysterious Håkan (Per Ragnar), is disturbed by her budding relationship with Oskar, and warns her against seeing him.  Their survival depends on anonymity, and Oskar represents a threat in more ways that one. He can identify them, but even more critically, he is a constant temptation to Eli—he might wind up her next meal. However, fear of discovery isn’t Håkan’s only objection to Oskar’s presence. By the end of the film, it becomes clear just what that objection is all about and what Håkan’s real relationship is to Eli.

Hedebrant and Leandersson create in their respective characters, Oskar and Eli, two outsiders whose relationship is incredibly straightforward and naturalistic. You won’t find the artifice and manufactured gestures of friendship so often seen in American films. Their interactions are unaffected and true, making their love and affection for one another so palpable and touching and their highly unusual situation credible—a human befriending a vampire. Leadersson is particularly appealing as Eli, the tragically beautiful child with large, soulful eyes whose body houses a much older woman. Eli tells Oskar, “I’m 12. But I’ve been 12 for a long time.” And Leandersson makes you believe it.

Beyond the wonderful performances, the person most responsible for making Let the Right One In a masterpiece is the director, Tomas Alfredson.  Alfredson and his production design team understand that tone is everything, and he establishes it right at the get go. From the opening scene mentioned earlier with the snow falling against a black, starless night onto the ground below and the streetlamps flooding the snow with light he creates an atmosphere that is serene and ghostly, quiet and unnerving. We don’t usually associate vampires with wintry landscapes, but the brilliant white, powdery snow, as cold as Eli’s icy cold body, stands in stark contrast to the rich, warm red blood that she and Håkan spill in her effort to survive.

And that leads me to the topic of blood, which audiences must expect to see along with violence—to one degree or another—in a vampire movie.  Alfredson gives us the blood and violence, yes, but he mitigates their use by practicing a restrained hand and using an artistic eye. He doesn’t succumb to the aesthetic of that fashionable new horror trend, torture porn. Instead he uses the gore judiciously, and creatively, to tell the story not as the story itself. He art directed these scenes so innovatively, giving the audience just enough of a glimpse and then concealing the rest, allowing them to use their own imagination.  The scenes were all the more horrifying because of Alfredson’s choices.

I can think of many adjectives one could use to describe vampire/horror movies. The word, “beautiful”, isn’t one of them. And yet, it is the one word I have used, and I’ve heard other people use repeatedly when describing Let the Right One In.  Hauntingly lovely, tender, and eerily sinister, Let the Right One In represents a unique cinematic achievement; and for me, one of the top films of 2008.*-JR