The REEL Addict 

By Kristal Cooper

Editor’s Note: In light of LET THE RIGHT ONE IN receiving several Best of 2008 nods last week, now seems like the perfect time for Kristal Cooper (who lent the film the coveted No. 1 spot) to make her case for why - even though it’s not eligible for Best Foreign Film at the Oscars - you should go track this movie down and see it. Now.  

“HOLLYWOOD! DO NOT REMAKE THIS MOVIE!”  This is a fruitless plea that film fans seem to be shouting from the rooftops on a daily basis these days.  Most of the time a remake is only just useless, but in the case of the exquisite Swedish vampire film LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, Hollywood would be raping the innate beauty of this story with its American sensibility.

The film begins with snow falling softly in the darkness. We meet our main character, a boy named Oskar who leads a chilly existence.  He is isolated from his schoolmates, separated from his Father, and left mostly alone by his Mother.  He truly has no one to turn to.  Enter Eli, a dour young girl with a wisdom behind her eyes that Oskar is drawn to.  The two bond during late night meetings at the playground and eventually Oskar’s friendship with Eli who, as she puts it, has been twelve “for a very long time” becomes the source of strength he needs to seek revenge on all those who have done him wrong.

Not the type of horror movie western audiences have become used to seeing over the past two decades, LET THE RIGHT ONE IN is a quiet and only occasionally gory rumination on loneliness.  It brilliantly depicts the similarities between a forlorn creature of the night and a solitary young boy, both of whom spend much of their time hiding who they are from the world as a defence mechanism.   It’s also a pitch perfect coming-of-age story that accurately portrays what happens when you find someone you can truly connect with, no matter the odds.

The film has won an award at just about every film festival it has appeared at in the last year and is currently only showing in a very limited release across North America.  Seek it out!  Support foreign films and let theatre chains know that movie-goers are smart enough to appreciate well-written, well-made films.

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN is currently slated to be remade by Hammer Films and is to be directed by Matt Reeves (Cloverfield), which should fill fans of this film with dread.  This is so much more than just a vampire movie and ultimately a studio-funded test-marketed-to-the-eyeballs version will only focus on the wrong things.   Unfortunately the buzz surrounding the film has caused the project to be fast-tracked so expect to see a finished project sometime next year.