Let the right people in Is the Swedish pioneer in the success of Matt Reeves’ horror films, let me in. So, do we choose Let the right person come Because we’re a bunch of pretentious movie snobs? No, it’s because I’ve seen this version, but never got around to releasing a follow-up version in the United States. Although it seems you’d be better off watching one or both.
Based on the novel by John Ajved Lindqvist, Let the right people in A profound and quietly tender story about the friendship between a 12-year-old boy, Oscar, and a girl, Eli, who appears to be about his age. Eli, new to the area, moves into the apartment building next door to Oscar, and the two begin a relationship, even though Eli declares from the beginning that they can never be friends. As you might have guessed given the nature of the franchise, Eli is also a vampire, which complicates things a bit – especially since she needs blood and Hakan, the grown man she lives with, can’t Give her any blood.
What follows is the most amazingly calm and evenly paced film in which Snow is as much a character as anyone. It’s a movie about childhood, about bullying, about friendship, before it’s about vampire dismemberment, but it doesn’t have any pretense, doesn’t think it’s above the genre, and there’s plenty of vampire dismemberment. Years before the breakthrough of “Black Scandinavian style”, Let the right people in Embodying all of its defining characteristics: understated seriousness, brooding quietness and dark black humour. ——J.W.
