Shameful #8 - Let the Right One In

Let the Right One In (2008, Alfredson) 

First, let me say that I’ve loved the whole vampire lore since I was a kid. Not like one of those kids who is like, totally secretly a vampire, but I loved them. I even wrote my eighth grade research paper on them. Nowadays, everyone is on the hate bandwagon because of Twilight, and now everybody talks about how vampires are brooding and whiny and boring, but I still think vampires are fucking awesome.

Let the Right One In is really a great departure from the vampires everyone is sick of. Oskar, a shy boy who’s being bullied at school, meets Ely, a girl who just moved in with her father, and they begin to fall for each other. It’s a simple, cute story, except for the fact that Ely is a vampire, the man, Hakan, isn’t her father, and he’s been murdering people to drain their blood so he can feed her. The great thing about Ely is that while we feel the tenderness between her and Oskar, the film never lets us forget that she is, at heart, a monster. She still has the mind of a twelve year old, and unlike many vampires today, she’s apologetic, but not ashamed about what she has to do. She feeds on blood, and she has to do what she has to do. It’s a really great contrast to the romance in the film.

Very soon, the American remake, Let Me In, is coming out. I have to admit, I’ve never been a fan of the whole “foreign film does well? Let’s remake it in English!” trend, especially since the remake rights were sold for this film before it even got released outside of film festivals. I feel like it says that 1) foreign films aren’t good enough, and 2) Americans don’t like/want to read subtitles (which personally, I’ve always thought was stupid, but that’s another story later). However, from what I’ve seen of the previews, Let Me In looks like it stays true to the original and will be just as eerie. I still say watch the original, but it definitely looks good, so I guess I can’t complain about it.