Let the Right One In: A Welcomed Change to Formula

All too often, vampire movies follow the same formula: the vampires are played by impossibly good-looking actors, there’s the vampire vs. other species prejudice/war bit, and there’s generally lots of blood, sex, violence and a special relationship between a vampire and a human. The formula isn’t bad, but it is rather overdone. So, it’s great to see a vampire film that isn’t afraid to be original, and to break from the mold. Let the Right One In, the Swedish precursor to the American remake Let Me In, approaches the story of the vampire from an entirely new perspective: that of a child.

Oskar is a lonely, bullied outcast whose life begins to change when a mysterious young girl and older man move into his apartment complex. He meets her one night on the playground: her name is Eli, and the older man is not her father. Slowly, Eli and Oskar build a friendship, and although Eli is a vampire (a fact that seems to make her relationship with Oskar stronger when she admits it), she and Oskar form a strong bond that leads them to protect each other when their lives depend on it.

This interesting, slightly creepy tale is, at its heart, a story about a friendship between two children who have no one else. Oskar has no friends at school, only tormentors, and his parents are absent. Eli, held back by her limitations as a vampire, and a child at that, is focused solely on survival and only has a servile protector for company. As both of their situations become more dangerous (for Oskar, the bullying at school only becomes more extreme, and Eli is suddenly left on her own to care for herself), they come to lean on each other more and more. Within the relationship, the two start to become independent, with Eli feeding herself and Oscar standing up to the classmates who bully him. A childish love even develops between the two; unsurprising, since it is not beyond belief that since they must take care of themselves like adults, they imitate adults in more ways than one.

Let the Right One In is an overall excellent movie that makes one glaring misstep: it assumes that viewers have read the book the film is based on. This fact becomes particularly important when dealing with the piece of the plot that surrounds Eli’s warning to Oskar, “I’m not a girl.” Apparently, in the book, Eli is actually a eunuch. However, this is not especially well-explained in the film, nor would I deem it particularly important to the story. It could have easily been left out and the story would have been just as good without it.

If you’re looking for a unique vampire story to watch as Halloween approaches, be sure to check out Let the Right One In. It’s sure to keep you entertained.