Let the Right One In

Supernal Dreams: Is “Let the Right One In” the year’s best vampire film?
By Lawrence French • December 21, 2008

One of the nice things about all the year end awards lists, is you can become aware of many smaller films you may have missed in all the overblown hype the studios trot out to promote such terrible misfires, like Twilight or The Spirit. The perfect example of this is the Swedish language vampire film, Let the Right One In, which I had somehow missed when it opened in a limited release last October. But now, Let the Right One In is turning up on quite a few critics lists as the “Best Foreign Language Film” of the year.

Newsweek’s David Ansen had this to say about it: Let the Right One In is the story of a 12-year-old boy who falls in love with a vampire girl who has been 12 for a very long time. It’s both an incredible coming-of-age story and a love story, and a movie where from the first image you know someone is in total control.

Regretfully, I’ve still not seen the film, but just based on what I”ve heard about it, I’d have to say this sounds like the year’s best vampire movie.

Therefore, I’m presenting these two missives from both the director and sreenwriter, of Let the Right One In. So if the movie is still playing in your neck of the woods this holiday season, be sure to check it out on Christmas day. Because, remember - anyone who is born on Christmas may possibly turn out to be be a Werewolf or a Vampire!

LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR

1982. A country that keeps going despite everything. Despite the February cold which has made the landscape come to a halt, frozen the water in the lakes and made the branches on the trees as tense as violin strings. The birds have flown to somewhere less desolate and the bears are sunk in deep sleep. Cities keep going in spite of it all.

The shimmering green of the street lights keeping the darkness at bay over salted and gritted streets. The oil from a distant land burning in the boiler rooms of the concrete blocks.

The people who live there. Preserving the hope of the exact opposite of all this. Coming home, taking off their damp winter boots, acrylic jumpers crackling over their heads, snagging nylon tights, burled wall to- wall carpet, all that humming electricity.

The hardworking mothers in the suburbs, the faithful fathers scraping the frost off their SAAB’s, the children who regardless of the darkness get up at seven and head off to school where they all dutifully finish their plates of liver.

Everyone reads one of two news papers in the morning, one of two at night, watches one of two news shows in which politicians go on about that submarine which ran aground off the coast. Two ways of thinking, red or blue. How do they stand it, those who live there in spite of it all? The people who don’t turn to each other for warmth, who hold their tongues and turn their backs for fear of cracking into pieces like statues, for fear of killing each other?

When I read John Ajvide Lindqvists novel Let The Right One In last summer I knew that I absolutely had to share this story on film. It’s a feeling you only get with one script or novel in a hundred. Most of the time there are parts of the material that grab me, a feeling here, a detail there, and urge to get my greedy hands on it and start rewriting. This time it was different. This is a story which is both grand literature and a fantastic drama. Despite the depressing background of a leaden grey Sweden, the harsh social conditions, the bullying and the bloody violence, I see it as a romantic love story with a hopeful and happy ending. I see the same dynamics between the dark background and the light foreground as in the stories of Charles Dickens, or the classical writers of horror, for that matter.

This is an entertaining film rich in social pathos and an in-depth knowledge of mankind, capable of attracting a mass audience without being flat or calculating. I also believe that its unequivocal Swedishness lends it great opportunities for international success.

Tomas Alfredson Director

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LETTER FROM THE SCREENWRITER

My script is about being lifted out of the darkness by love. About going under and suddenly being rescued by a helping hand. A totally unexpected helping hand. It’s about a boy, Oskar. Intimidation and living in a dysfunctional home has made his life hell. He’s 12 and he wants revenge.

Above all it’s a love story. Of how Eli’s love releases Oskar, how she makes him look upon himself in a different light. Not as the scared one, not as the victim. How she gives him courage to stand up for himself. But Eli is a vampire. A real one, one that lives on blood. The title touches on what I think is the most interesting moral aspect on vampires. They have to be invited to get to you …

My stories are not excesses in blood and gore. It’s naturally there, but above all I try to describe how people react when faced with the Unknown. Our reality is sheer and fragile. We live our lives seeking happiness. And at the same time … a vague sensation of that all can be taken away from us, at any moment. A very thin veil divides us from the fall, the monster, the deafening darkness. Or love. The Unknown. What happens when it enters our lives? What do we do?

Let the right one in, is a very romantic story featuring strong violence, supernatural elements and a happy ending, played out in the Stockholm suburb of Blackeberg in 1982.

To put it simple:
“Can I come in?”
“Please let me in.”
“Come in.”

John Ajvide Author and Screenwriter

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Let the right one in
Let the old dreams die
Let the wrong ones go
They cannot they cannot they cannot do
What you want them to do

Let the right one in
Let the old dreams die
Let the wrong ones go
They do not they do not they do not see
What you want them to

Let the right one in
Let the old things fade
Put the tricks and schemes (for good) away
I will advise until my mouth dries
I will advise you to

Let the right one slip in slip in slip in
And when at last it does
I’d say you were within your rights to bite
The right one and say, “What kept you so long?”
What kept you so long?