Is there really any wrinkle left to be explored in the vampire genre?
No doubt. You just have to travel to Sweden to find it.
The new Swedish thriller “Let the Right One In” follows a teen vampire as she bonds with an awkward, isolated boy. It’s hardly the stuff teen romances are made of, but it gives young love – and the vampire film in toto – a well needed jolt.
Young Eli (Lina Leandersson) is a vampire, but she’s not too keen on having to kill people to stay alive. So she has a father-like figure do the dirty work. His latest killing caught the public’s attention, threatening Eli’s anonymous existence.
So does her reluctant friendship with Oskar (Kare Hedebrant), a sweet but lonely 12-year-old boy who lives in Eli’s apartment complex. The two spend many a moonlit night together, and Oskar may be falling in love for the first time.
Eli is wise enough to keep him at arm’s length, but when her own existence is threatened, Oskar could be her best chance to remain undead.
And she might have feelings of her own for the precocious lad.
Don’t let Eli’s youthful appearance fool you. She’s as mean as Nosferatu on a bender, a killing machine when pushed too far. It’s one of many reasons why “Let the Right One In” transcends its horror underpinnings. It’s slow and thoughtful for scene after scene, until a sudden burst of violence rocks us back in our seats.
The still camera work, the wide shots and the atmospheric music all elevate the film above and beyond standard horror fare.
The film’s biggest subplot involves a trio of bullies who make Oskar’s life miserable during daylight hours. The scrappy Eli gives him some tips on dealing with their taunts, but when the bullies start intervening in the main story arc the film loses much of its focus.
As the finale draws near, you’re left to wonder what the filmmakers had in mind with their unorthodox horror tale. The final scenes deliver all the gore a horror fiend could want, but by that point we expect so much more than just your garden variety bloodbath.
(Photo: Lina Leandersson plays a teen vampire in “Let the Right One In,” a Magnet Release. Photo courtesy of Magnet Releasing.)
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Magnet Releasing (a subdivision of Mark Cuban’s Magnolia) has really picked up some interesting films for release as part of their “Six Shooter Film Series.” Besides “Let the Right One In”(which I’ve heard nothing but good things about), they are releasing “Special” (a comedy in which a guy undergoing a clinical drug trial becomes convinced he is a superhero), “Timecrimes” (a clever Spanish time travel film), “Big Man Japan” (a mockumentary about a Japanese superhero who is really bad at his job), “Donkey Punch” (a group of 20-somethings on a yacht turn against each other after a freak accident) and “Eden Log” (a horror/mystery/sci-fi where an amnesiac is being pursued by a creature through an odd abandoned place).
I personally don’t like Cuban (and his funding of terrible left-wing films through Magnolia), but whoever is running Magnet is doing a fantastic job. I just hope they hurry up and release “Mirageman” soon. I saw that at the Philly Film Festival recently and thought it was fantastic, but they still haven’t announced its release (it was supposed to get a brief run in cinemas this fall).
Funding bad left wing movies is self-punishing. Unless he’s running some kind of Uwe Boll-style tax shelter, that is…