Oct 03 2008
Vampires just won’t die off, will they?
Those fanged bloodsuckers can certainly be tiresome cinematic subjects. I think we’ve seen vampires as symbols/metaphors/allegories for everything from AIDS through drug addiction to capitalist consumption run amok. Funny vampires! Scary vampires! Modern vampires! Sci-fi vampires! I won’t hold it against you if you skip this post out of sheer boredom because of these overused and overplayed terrors of the night.
But…if the hype is to be believed…there’s a new vampire pic coming our way that could be worth a look and which might — dare I say — inject some new blood into the subgenre.
Let The Right One In (a.k.a. Låt den rätte komma in) is director Tomas Alfredson’s attempt to marry bloodsucker lore and adolescent angst. As that alternate title might have indicated for you, this is a Swedish movie. Seems like a perfect marriage of nationality and material, doesn’t it? Creatures of the night and the gloomy, doomy land of Ingmar Bergman?
The film tells the story of a fragile young boy — bullied by his peers, naturally — who befriends a 12-year-old girl who moves in next door with her pops. Coinciding with the arrival of the new neighbors, however, are a string of strange disappearances and murders, all bound by a single common denominator: drained blood.
The marriage of coming-of-age drama plus a is-(s)he/isn’t-(s)he-a-vampire mystery is nothing new (check out Philip Ridley’s little-seen The Reflecting Skin with Viggo Mortensen as a nice example), but advance reaction suggests that Let The Right One In is packed with genuinely haunting imagery, a spot-on evocation of the trials of youth, a generous helping of blood and deaths, and, most importantly, some amazing performances from the two young leads, Kåre Hedebrant as the boy Oskar, and Lina Leandersson as the mysterious girl Eli. The film seems to have received, so far, unanimously positive accolades on the festival circuit.
Magnolia Pictures will be distributing Let The Right One In in the U.S., and you can check their posted playdates and locations as they’re updated. It opens on Oct. 24 in New York City and West Hollywood.
In addition, you can watch the subtitled trailer here.
