Let the Right One In

Sweden, 2008, 114 min

Even if you aren’t a fan of the blood-sucking genre, you are sure to enjoy Tomas Alfredson’s coming-of-age vampire love story, Let the Right One In. The Swedish film takes all the elements of your typical vampire film, reworks them, and creates a flick that is mesmerizing and sympathetic, while still giving horror fans what they want: loads of blood.
                                                
Shot in a snowy Swedish suburb, the film lets us in to the life of Oskar, a 12-year-old boy who’s constantly tormented and ridiculed by his peers, but is unable to retaliate. One night, Oskar meets his neighbour Eli, a peculiar girl with an odd smell and an evil secret: she’s a vampire. The two take a keen interest in each other, and audiences watch as their romantic relationship plays out in a naïve, yet twisted fashion.

Let the Right One In received the Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, and after seeing it you’ll understand why. The cinematography aids in perfectly capturing the chilling and morose tone of the film, and the story adds honesty and feeling to a genre that’s largely unsympathetic. Let the right One In proves that ABBA and IKEA aren’t the only good things to have come out of Sweden.