Last night I watched “Let The Right One In“, which is one of the best films I’ve seen for a long time, in any genre. I won’t spoil it for you, but it’s based on an unlikely love story between a shy, bullied twelve year old boy and a vampire girl who moves in next door to him.
It’s set in a snow-covered Sweden, in Swedish, with beautiful photography, characters you grow to care about, and a surreal mix of coming-of-age love story and animal-like vampirism.
All in all, I’d say it’s a contender for the best vampire film I’ve ever seen, and it’s up there with Ringu in the ‘beautiful horror’ category.
Well, you did rather spoil it for me, as the cinematic trailers don't give away that it's a vampire film and I get the feeling that everyone else was deliberately not mentioning the fact. But now I know...
ckentish
Indeed - it was a great film. Couple of things let it down - the awful scene with the cats. And the swimming pool scene. Both ruined by poor CGI. Shame as that film didn't need any CGI to carry the story.
Yes, Stef it's a super film, and all the more impressive for coming from a first-time director. I think there's a sense in which it's slightly too in awe of great horror set pieces, and the hospital sequence doesn't sit entirely comfortably within the overall tone of the film, but the way in which it handles the austerity, and the emotional and environmental isolation of (all) the characters is superb.
There's obviously much more in the book than is fully explored within the parameters of a film, but I think it's all the better for that: The vagueness over gender, and the hinting towards paedophilia add to the richness of the whole. I can't help but think that all this will be absent from the US version of the story that's currently in production.
The best vampire film ever made?
Last night I watched “Let The Right One In“, which is one of the best films I’ve seen for a long time, in any genre. I won’t spoil it for you, but it’s based on an unlikely love story between a shy, bullied twelve year old boy and a vampire girl who moves in next door to him.
It’s set in a snow-covered Sweden, in Swedish, with beautiful photography, characters you grow to care about, and a surreal mix of coming-of-age love story and animal-like vampirism.
All in all, I’d say it’s a contender for the best vampire film I’ve ever seen, and it’s up there with Ringu in the ‘beautiful horror’ category.