Review #187: Let the Right One In (2008)

This review was originally written in 2022.

Gabe's 100 Bucket List Horror Films Review #42: Let the Right One In (2008)

Let the Right One In is a Swedish film about a young boy, Oskar, bullied at school and without many peers, who befriends a girl, Eli, who recently moved into his apartment complex and who tries to teach Oskar to stand up for himself. Little does Oskar know, Eli is actually a vampire and her bloodlust will soon cause problems- problems that have kept her on the run for many, many years.

This is a very uncomfortable movie. The first layer, is the way Oskar is bullied throughout the film. One could easily interpret this whole film as being about the cycle of bullying- Oskar is bullied by a kid at his school (who himself gets others to carry out most of the bullying, lest they be bullied themselves), but when Oskar begins to fight back, he learns that the bully who is bullying him, is actually being bullied himself, and he uses that very bullying to pass on the bullying to anyone below him on the bullying totem pole. On one hand this is very sad, because we can imagine how much better the world of the movie would be for everyone involved if they could all just take a step back and stop perpetuating this vicious cycle of abuse and trauma. But on the other hand, the manner of and degree to which the bullying happens in this film, is TERRIFYING! One of the final scenes has such a brutal and viscerally scary form of torture being exacted on Oskar (which itself was in retaliation for the one time Oskar stood up for himself) that before this viewing I had to mentally prepare myself for it. I knew it was coming and it still was rough.

But the bullying isn't the only layer. The second layer is that... well, there's no other way to put this: This is a movie about pedophilia. At least, one could easily interpret this movie as being about pedophilia. Either Håkan is a pedophile for spending his whole life in love and service of Eli, this centuries-old being in the body of a child, or- if you're of the mind that "Eli isn't a child, she just has the body of a child", okay, you do you I guess, but- Eli is a pedophile for entering into a relationship with Oskar, who is ABSOLUTELY a child. And the thing is, both of these relationships- Håkan and Eli, and Eli and Oskar- are portrayed in the movie as being loving and tender. Because, get this- Eli isn't the villain in this movie. The vampire, who kills people, has people killed for her, and steals and manipulates and so on- isn't the antagonist of the film, the antagonist of the film is the bully (and the bully's bully friends and bully brother). So like, the film isn't even presenting these pedophiliac relationships as "We know this is bad, the villain has manipulated these people into loving her"- from the structure of the film and the way it tells its story, this is a story about people who love Eli, as problematic as that may be.

I also think it's kind of odd how the message of the bullying portion of the story doesn't seem to be "Stand up for yourself, and the bullies will stop bullying you!" because that 100% does not work out for Oskar. In the end, the solution to his bullying problem isn't connecting with his bullies on an emotional level, it isn't self-respect: the answer is "get a stronger bully to back you up".

I don't know if this has sounded like I didn't like this film, because I did. I mean, I'm not going to watch it again anytime soon, but the film is very competently made and if it was intended to induce a strong feeling of dread and despair from minute one to minute one hundred, then it succeeded. My favorite part of the film overall was actually the subplot involving the other people living in the apartment complex- I really like how this movie deals with some of the minutiae of being a supernatural creature (what with the rules on how vampires work, the logistics of safely securing blood for consumption, etc.), and this subplot does a good job of showing how this creature's proximity affects the other people who live around them. I just wish there was more of it! This subplot is incredibly slight, and was almost entirely omitted from the remake (but more on that in its own review).

Oh, and a couple other little tidbits because I didn't know where else to put them: First, the title bothers me. Why is it "Let the Right One In"? There was only one to let in. The title makes it seem like Oskar (or whoever) has to decide which one to let in, so make sure you let in the right one. But there wasn't a wrong one, was there? (Or was there ONLY a wrong one?) The remake is simply titled "Let Me In", which is much more accurate, if less evocative. [Edit from Gabe in 2024: is the "right one" supposed to be "the right bully"? After all, as I said the message about how to deal with bullies seems to be "get a stronger bully to back you up", so maybe they're trying to say "let in the right bully", but again, it's not like there was more than one bully Oskar had an opportunity to "let in". Anyway.] And the other thing I wanted to mention: This is entirely absent from the remake, but in this movie, Eli's repeated insistence that "I'm not a girl" may sound like she's referring to herself as a monster rather than a human, but there's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it detail where the filmmakers heavily imply that Eli was born a boy, and castrated before becoming a vampire. Fun stuff!

So, this movie isn't bad- it's actually pretty good- it's just hard to watch. Twice is enough for me, thanks.

Overall Rating: 6/10 Class Presentations About Dead Body Forensics

A Request for Kåre Hedebrant (the actor that played Oskar): PLEASE CLOSE YOUR DANG MOUTH, EVEN FOR A SECOND. In every scene where Oskar is swimming, HE IS CONSTANTLY HOLDING HIS OPEN MOUTH RIGHT AT THE WATER LEVEL. Do you WANT pool water in your mouth? You certainly seem like you do. It's not that hard to tread water with your mouth closed, or at least with your mouth ABOVE the water! Come on, man!