Vampire Flicks: Let The Right One In (Lat Den Ratte Komma In) (2008)

I've mentioned before that, from around 2008 to the start of 2014, I was a fan of a horror podcast and a member of its message board. While that place ultimately became very toxic and fell apart for various reasons, during its heyday, it was a great place to learn of contemporary horror films produced in both the United States and around the world, some of which I would grow to love when I finally did see them (and others not so much, as you saw with High Tension). In the case of Let The Right One In, I can't remember exactly when I first heard the hosts speak of it but I do remember them highly praising it, especially admiring its visuals and cinematography. Very soon, I realized this was one of those rare films that was absolutely lauded by both genre lovers and many mainstream critics who aren't always big on horror films, with Roger Ebert calling it, "The best modern vampire movie." What really perked my attention, though, was when John Carpenter praised it in an interview. With all that, I just had to see it at some point and it actually wasn't too long before I found the Blu-Ray at McKay's. Unfortunately, I have to admit that I wasn't all that impressed with it upon that first viewing. I agreed with everyone that it was visually pleasing, with all the crisp, white snow and the cold, nighttime scenes, the direction was solid, and the acting was pretty good (at least, in the actual Swedish version; don't ever watch the English dubbed one), but on the whole, besides finding it to be a tad too slow and drawn out, I didn't think the story, of two lonely, isolated pre-teens meeting and falling in love, only for one of them to turn out to be a vampire, was the amazing twist on the myth people were calling it. It's definitely done in a much more adult, dark fashion than you would ever see in a Hollywood-made film (i.e. Twilight) but it just didn't come off as that remarkable to me. Upon repeated viewings, I have learned to appreciate it more and would definitely call it a good modern vampire movie, but I still don't think it's an incredible work of art like so many others do.

Oskar is a twelve-year old boy who lives with his divorced mother in a small apartment in the Stockholm suburb of Blackeberg. His life consists of going to school, getting bullied by a trio of boys in his class, and fantasizing about a revenge he's too meek to actually act out. Then, one snowy night, a girl about Oskar's age moves into the apartment next to his, along with an older man. Oskar soon meets the girl in the complex's courtyard, and while she initially comes off as distant and unfriendly, immediately telling him they can't be friends, they meet twice more and bond over a Rubik's cube, which the girl manages to solve. She then introduces herself as Eli, adding that she's twelve, "more or less," and Oskar teaches her Morse code so they can communicate by tapping on the wall between their apartments. When his bullying continues, Eli encourages him to stand up for himself and fight back, adding that she'll be there for him if he needs her. However, Eli is hiding a horrifying secret: she's a vampire, and the old man who lives with her, Hakan, is her servant and she depends on him to bring her fresh blood, a task he's failed recently, much to her anger. This forces Eli to feed on Jocke, a local man who's part of a group of friends who often meet up at the neighborhood cafe; one of the friends, Gosta, witnesses the attack from his apartment's balcony. Soon afterward, while trying to secure more blood for Eli, Hakan fails to kill his intended victim and is captured, but not before he badly burns his face with acid to keep himself from being identified. Learning of this, Eli visits him at the hospital where he's recovering, drinks his own blood, and he then falls out the window to his death. She then visits Oskar again and he asks if she'd like to go steady with him, which she agrees to. However, Eli's bloodlust has far-reaching repercussions, while Oskar's standing up to his bullies makes him the target of the main bully's older, sadistic brother. Oskar also soon figures out Eli's true nature and must decide whether or not he wants to continue seeing a creature that feeds on the blood of innocent people.

Based on a book by John Ajvide Lindqvist, Let The Right One In was directed by Tomas Alfredson, who'd started his career in the Swedish television industry, having had a hand in the creation of the channel, TV4, and been behind several successful shows. He made his feature debut with 1995's Bert: The Last Virgin, based on one of his television series, and he'd continued working in television up to the time he did this film, although he had directed two more features in the interim: 2003's Kontorstid and 2004's Four Shades of Brown. Although he had to be pressed to read the original novel, and has admitted to not being a fan of the horror genre, Alfredson said he was quite taken by it and opted to direct the film version. He was initially resistant to the idea of Lindqvist himself writing the screenplay but was happy with the end result, which eliminated many side characters and subplots from the book and, instead, focused on the relationship between Oskar and Eli, the part of the story that most interested Alfredson. Following Let The Right One In's successful release, Alfredson said he wasn't going to make any more movies for a while, as he'd lost faith in the Swedish film and television industry, and he was also reluctant to leave home in order to work in Hollywood. But, in 2011, he directed Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, where he worked with an all-star cast that included Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, John Hurt, and Benedict Cumberbatch. It was a major hit in the UK and was nominated for three Oscars, but the same could not be said of Alfredson's next film, 2017's The Snowman, which bombed badly with both critics and audiences. He's since returned to working in Sweden but, at this point, does have more features coming down the pipeline.

Among other things, Let The Right One In is a testament to how childhood can be a pretty miserable, anguished period in one's life, especially if you're a rather troubled oddball like Oskar (Kare Hedebrant). Oskar's major interest is in violent crime, as he collects newspaper and magazine clippings concerning recent murders and other such offenses in his area, and he also fantasizes about getting revenge on those at school who bully and torment him (the movie opens with him lunging about his bedroom in his underwear, yelling the "pig" comments his abusers often hurl at him). In reality, though, he's too meek and repressed to actually do it and just takes the abuse. He lives with his divorced mother in their apartment but, now and then, goes and stays with his father, whom he seems to have a better relationship with. Oskar's life starts to change when he meets Eli. Although she's initially cold and distant towards him, telling him off the bat that the two of them can't be friends, they meet again and again, bonding when she manages to solve his Rubik's cube puzzle and when he teaches her Morse code, allowing them to communicate by knocking on the wall separating their apartments. It's also because of Eli that Oskar begins to stand up to his bullies, first to keep the leader, Conny, from taking the Morse code alphabet he wrote down for her and then when she actively encourages him, prompting him to take weight-lifting classes after school. The two of them grow closer and closer, until eventually, he asks her to go steady with him, despite her telling him that she's not a girl. She agrees to it, though, and Oskar soon gives Conny the what for by splitting his ear open with a metal pole when he tries to push him into ice-cold water. Oskar is very proud of himself over this, as is Eli, but then, he tries to make a blood bond with her, cutting his hand and trying to mix his blood with hers. This activates Eli's thirst and Oskar is shocked when she laps up the blood of his that drips onto the floor. It doesn't take him long to realize what she is and he also doesn't believe her when she tries to give him some money she claims was "given" to her by various people, as believes it's likely money she took from her victims. But, despite his initial horror at the notion that she preys on people, he's not frightened of her and continues to hang out with her. In fact, she soon becomes the only "human" connection has, given his growing estrangement from his mother and the discovery that his father is an alcoholic. He even protects her life when a friend of one of her victims comes to get revenge, after which she goes away, both to protect herself and him. However, it turns out she may have left when he really needs someone to look out for him.

Even if she weren't a vampire, Eli (Lina Leandersson) could still be considered off-putting due to her unusual, androgynous appearance, pale skin, strange scent that Oskar comments on, and her voice, which is much deeper than that of a twelve-year old girl (Leandersson was dubbed over by Turkish-born actor, Elif Ceylan). She also makes no illusions of how strange she is from the moment she first meets Oskar, where he sees her standing atop a jungle gym in the apartment complex's courtyard, dressed very lightly, despite it being a cold, winter night, and claiming to live in the jungle gym when he first asks her, before hopping down to the ground in a very graceful manner. She tells him, "Just so you know, I can't be your friend," and when he asks why, she answers, "Does there have to be a reason? That's just the way it is." But, despite this, the two of them meet up again, bonding over Oskar's Rubik's cube, which Eli takes and solves, and when they meet up for the third time, Eli has made sure to get rid of her strange smell. She still comes off as rather odd, saying she's, "Twelve, more or less," and that she doesn't know when her birthday is, but they continue to grow closer, with Oskar teaching her Morse code so the two of them can communicate while in their respective apartments, while she encourages him to stand up to his bullies, promising to be there if he needs her. At one point, Oskar offers her some candy, which she says she can't eat, proving her point by throwing up when she does try one. That's, of course, because Eli can only live on the blood of others, which she's forced to do herself when her older companion, Hakan, fails in harvesting blood for her. After she feeds on Hakan's own blood and he dies, Eli goes to Oskar again and, when he asks if she wants to go "steady" with him, she agrees when he tells her it wouldn't be any different from their current relationship. But when Oskar tries to form a blood bond with Eli, he awakens her bloodlust and causes her to reveal her vampiric nature when she laps up his spilled blood before running off to find another victim.

We only see glimpses of Eli's vampire side but, when it comes out, it's quite terrifying. Your first hint of it is in her un-childlike voice, particularly when she yells at Hakan for failing to get her blood, as you can hear fury, and she also pants heavily in a way that doesn't sound human. The first time you see it in action, though, is when she attacks and feeds on Jocke under the bridge. She uses her young, sickly appearance as a way of making him drop his guard and then asks for help,

acting like she can't walk. Jocke picks her up to take her somewhere to call for help and, once he does, Eli attacks, letting out a monstrous snarl and latches onto him, biting and tearing into his flesh before finally feeding on his blood and killing him by snapping his neck. She comes very close to doing the same to Oskar when he takes her down into his school's basement and suggests the two of them form a blood bond. When he slices his hand open and asks her to do the same, Eli begins to

emit the same inhuman sounds as before, breathing heavily, lightly snorting, and growling. It's obviously taking all of her willpower to keep her from attacking Oskar. Licking her lips, she jumps down on all fours and begins lapping up his blood that dripped on the floor, making noises that, disturbingly, sound akin to a young dog feeding. Looking up at him with eyes that have an unearthly color and sheen to them (they briefly glowed in the dark before Oskar turned on the lights in the basement), she yells for him to leave, but when he's

too shocked to do so, she runs away, climbs up a tree, and sits on a large branch; she later jumps down at Virginia from it and bites her on the neck. As frightening as she can be, though, you also get a sense of how miserable this existence is for Eli and how much she hates it. Before she attacks Jocke, you see the physical pain she feels when the hunger hits her, as well as a possible feeling of guilt and reluctance to kill someone in order to quell it. She can also be heard quietly sobbing after killing Jocke, and when Oskar correctly guesses that she's a vampire, she somewhat frets over how he feels about it and tries to explain her dilemma, as well as get him to empathize with her.

I've read that the original novel gave Eli a lot of backstory, but when John Ajvide Lindqvist wrote the screenplay and Tomas Alfredson further developed the film, she became a complete enigma. The only thing you know about her is that she became a vampire when she was around twelve but exactly how long ago that was is never made clear (you could easily deduce it's possibly been for centuries, given some of her dialogue), nor is where she's originally from or what her

relationship with Hakan exactly is. Also, in the book, it's revealed that Eli is actually a boy who was castrated centuries ago but here, it's only alluded to very vaguely, with Eli telling Oskar she isn't a girl, which most would probably take as allusions to her being a vampire, and a scar on her groin that you get a glimpse of when she's changing her clothes in one scene, which I initially thought was just her vaginal slit (either way, it's a shot that makes me very uncomfortable). Being someone who always appreciates some ambiguity,

I think this vagueness is much more effective than the backstory in the novel, as it not only makes Eli herself more intriguing but it also makes her appearance at the apartments at the beginning of the film all the more sudden and frightening. Plus, it also leaves open the question of whether she's the only vampire in the world at the moment or if there are more out there.

Speaking of which, while both Lindqvist and Alfredson have admitted to having no interest in vampires, this story does incorporate some of the familiar tropes, albeit with some occasional spins. The most notable ones are how anybody who's attacked by Eli and isn't totally drained of blood becomes a vampire as well, that they're vulnerable to sunlight and sleep during the day (while she rests in a crate during the ending scene, Eli mainly sleeps under blankets in her apartment's bathtub

and has all the windows covered up), and they tend to have human servants who perform various tasks for them, with Hakan basically being Eli's Renfield. The film is particularly well-known for exploring the trope of a vampire needing to be invited into a dwelling, as Eli shows Oskar what happens when she enters his apartment without him doing so: she bleeds out from her various orifices until he says she can come in. I'd heard that it provided an answer to that age-old question and,

while I initially thought the end result was a bit underwhelming and not that creative, I grew to appreciate it more when I realized it was a manifestation of rejection. Also, you see that a vampire literally can't ingest anything other than blood without vomiting it back up. There are notable omissions, such as all the religious iconography, the vampires' ability to turn into other creatures (Eli tells Oskar she flew at one point, and since she was seen climbing up the side of a building right before, she may very well have, but

there are no hints that she becomes a bat, or a wolf, for that matter), and the stake through the heart (that said, Lacke attempts to kill Eli with a small pocketknife but whether or not that would've worked is never made clear). And as with most modern takes on vampires, it doesn't seem as though Eli is undead as much as she's now simply cursed to live for all eternity while feeding on blood.

A major question many viewers have is what exactly are Eli's interests in Oskar, as you can interpret her actions in one of two ways. One is that she's genuinely fond of him, wants to have a human connection for the first time in a long time, and is genuinely concerned for his well-being, which is why she encourages him to stand up to his bullies. The other is that she's just an evil monster who intends for Oskar to eventually take Hakan's place as her servant and guardian, and is trying to

manipulate him into reaching the point where he'll have no choice but to do so, i.e. by pushing him to kill his bullies and become so infatuated with her that he'll protect her at all costs. Personally, and this could just be me being a softie who wants this to be the case, I think it's the former. I think she's interested in Oskar from the moment she first sees him but initially tries to dissuade any interest on his part because she knows it won't be any good for him. I feel her interest in the Rubik's cube is

genuine, as is their communication through Morse code, and that she does grow to really like Oskar and wants to spend time with him, even agreeing to go steady with him, despite her telling him she's not really a girl. Once he accepts that, and she learns that going steady wouldn't be much different from what they're already doing, she's pretty much his. But then, he discovers she's a vampire through the botched blood pact and she appears truly frightened of what she might do now that her hunger has been awakened, leading to her feeding

on his spilled blood and going to find another victim. Moreover, when he later becomes upset and disgusted by the idea of her killing people, she implores him to empathize with her, telling him, "Be me for a little while," obviously wanting him to accept and understand her lot in life. He does and continues to be her friend, but when he stops Lacke from killing her, giving her the chance to kill him in turn, she decides to leave, obviously not wanting to destroy Oskar's life. That doesn't last long, as she somehow knows of the danger he's in

from Conny's big brother and returns to save him, after which the two of them leave together. But, despite all this ambiguity, I think one thing is clear about the ending: despite their being together, it's not a happy scenario because, whether or not Oskar is destined to become another Hakan, he's going to have a difficult and pretty horrific existence as long as he's involved with Eli, as she knew he would.

Like Eli, Hakan (Per Ragnar) had a full backstory in the novel, where it was explained he was a man who'd hit a low point in his life and she gave him something of a reason to exist again, as well as that he was a pedophile and on the verge of committing suicide due to his guilt about it, but in the film, he's a mystery. Whether he's a member of her family, a simple, Renfield-like servant, or started out like Oskar and was a young boy when she first met him, is left open to interpretation. All you know for sure is that he's something of a companion and guardian for Eli, one who harvests blood for her by killing people and draining them as they hang upside down like slaughtered animals, as well as disposes of her victims' bodies. It's also clear he has some sort of personal attachment to Eli, as he enjoys her touching his face and becomes jealous when she begins spending more and more time with Oskar, even asking her not to see him at one point. (Because of that, when he badly bungles another attempt to gather blood for her, this time by attacking a high school student, I thought he was attempting to kill Oskar out of jealousy and got the wrong person instead.) While he may have been helpful to her in the past, Hakan begins to outlive his usefulness to Eli when he's forced to flee the scene of one of his murders and forgets the jug containing the blood. And when he becomes trapped after attempting to kill the high school student and is in danger of being arrested, he actually burns his face with acid so he can't be identified. Ultimately, Eli visits him at the hospital and he willingly allows her to feed on his own blood and falls out the window to his death.

Hakan's failure to harvest blood for Eli early on leads to her preying on Jocke (Mikael Rahm), one of a local group of friends, and starts a chain of events that spells disaster for nearly all of them. Jocke is first introduced at a local diner, where he's hanging out with his friend Lacke (Peter Carlberg), his girlfriend, Virginia (Ika Nord), and a couple of their other friends. They sit around drinking, smoking, and talking politics, when Lacke spots Hakan sitting by himself and tries to get him to join

them, commenting, "He might buy a round." However, Hakan doesn't respond to his small-talk and refuses the offer. That night, after Jocke leaves his friends to head for home, he comes across Eli, who fakes being injured to get close enough to him to attack and feed on his blood, after which she kills him by snapping his neck. Another friend of the group, Gosta (Karl Robert Lindgren), a rather reclusive man with a number of cats in his apartment, sees this and runs to tell the others. When he leads

them to the spot, Jocke's body has been removed by Hakan, who hides it in a spot near a small pond, but later, his frozen body is discovered by Oskar's class while on a field trip to the pond. The confirmation of his death hits Lacke especially hard, and he, Virginia, and their other friends try to convince Gosta to tell the police of what he saw but he's paranoid about being interrogated and refuses. Lacke, obviously a bit drunk, gets so upset over this, saying he has nothing left without that Jocke, that when Virginia tries to comfort him, he angrily rebuffs her, telling her that she doesn't

understand and calls her cold. Hurt at this, she storms out, with Lacke then following her, trying to apologize. This leads to her getting jumped and bitten by Eli, and while Lacke is able to save Virginia, she starts to become a vampire herself. She finds she can't take being exposed to the sun, and when she goes to Gosta's apartment, his cats attack her, leading to her being hospitalized. Though Lacke tries to cheer her up by talking of a nice cottage the two of them will buy together, Virginia tells him that Eli infected her with something and she doesn't want to live. Shortly afterward, she asks a male nurse to open her room's window and the sunlight incinerates her. Now having lost both her and Jocke, Lacke decides to take revenge. Remembering where Hakan had moved in with a kid and that Gosta said a kid attacked Jocke, he makes his way to the apartment and finds Eli. He comes close to killing her, but Oskar stops him, giving Eli the chance to awaken and kill him herself.

Oskar doesn't have the best relationship with his divorced mother, Yvonne (Karin Bergquist). It seems like, while they get along okay, for the most part, she's rather stern and overprotective, telling him to come straight home after school when, after Hakan kills the passerby, it seems like a killer is in the area. She's quite furious with him when he finally fights back against his bullies and badly injures their ringleader, and loses her patience with him more and more as he hides Eli from her, as

well as goes over to her apartment without telling her. When she attempts to confront him about the latter, he goes into his room, slams the door in her face, and puts something under the knob on the other side, as she pounds on the door and yells at him. She also doesn't seem to have the greatest relationship with Oskar's father, Erik (Henrik Dahl), but Oskar himself does. When he arrives at his isolated farmhouse to spend a week with him, Erik welcomes him with open arms and they have a lot of fun together. But, when you see Oskar visiting his father later, that sense of security is shattered when a man shows up and Erik interrupts the game he's playing with his son to pull out a bottle of vodka, revealing the man to be his drinking buddy and that Erik has a problem with alcoholism. Oskar never visits him again, and that feeling of loneliness leads him to seek out Eli's company more and more, despite her being a vampire. (Some, including myself, have initially interpreted this scene as meaning that Erik is gay but Tomas Alfredson himself has said that's not the case.)

The kids who pick on Oskar are nothing but typical bullies, with their leader, Conny (Patrik Rydmark), doing it simply because he knows he's too meek to fight back. Among the horrendous things he does to him are repeatedly call him "piggy" and tell him to squeal like one, have his two lackeys restrain and beat on him when he won't give up the Morse code he wrote down for Eli, and throw his pants into a urinal while he's working out, forcing him to walk him in the cold in his shorts. Speaking of his

lackeys, while Martin (Mikael Erhardsson) mostly goes along with it, pretending to approve of Oskar standing up to Conny in order to lure him into the trap at the end, Andreas (Johan Somnes) is the more reluctant of the group, hesitating when Conny has him beat on Oskar to give up the codes, becoming upset when he actually does it, and not taking an active part in the climactic assault on him at the swimming pool. When Conny attempts to shove him into a hole in the icy pond during a

field trip, Oskar finally fights back by splitting his ear open with a metal pole. Though this, initially, stops the bullying, it ultimately leads to Oskar being confronted by Conny's older brother, Jimmy (Rasmus Luthander), who proves to be far more sadistic and menacing than the others. Distracting the teacher and clearing everyone else out of the pool, Jimmy takes out a switchblade and threatens to stab Oskar in the eye if he doesn't stay underwater for three full minutes. He then grabs him by the hair, shoves his head under the water,

and holds him there, with Oskar very quickly running out of air and beginning to lose consciousness. Like Andreas, Martin and Conny begin to feel uneasy about this but Jimmy, who's clearly enjoying it, yells for them to shut up. This leads to the bullies getting dismembered when Eli comes to save Oskar, with Andreas, who was sitting in the bleachers, being the only one spared, albeit very traumatized at what he just saw.

Save for a few moments here and there, Let The Right One In is a very calm, quiet movie, with little music, dialogue that's often spoken in hushed tones, and a number of long, unbroken shots that involve very little editing. Tomas Alfredson allows many significant scenes to play out either in single, fixed camera angles or with occasional simple, smooth pans and tracks, often in big, wide shots. Examples include Hakan first attacking the man whose blood he intends to harvest, Oskar's first encounter with Eli in the courtyard, Eli attacking

Jocke under the bridge, the bullies assaulting Oskar for his Morse codes, and Oskar standing up to Conny and splitting his ear open, among many others. But, at the same time, there are notable scenes that play out in extreme close-up, like when Eli berates Hakan for failing to bring her any blood, with the camera remaining fixed on his face as she yells at him from offscreen and occasionally moves past the camera. Another example is when Eli tells Oskar she must leave, which has shots where the camera fixates on one or the other's faces

as they play out the scene with her talking to and then kissing him. Alfredson isn't even afraid to hold on these types of shots and then incorporate some type of effects work into them, like in a big, wide shot outside of the hospital where the nurse walks outside and then walks back in, with Eli then climbing up the side of the building, or when she runs into and climbs up a small tree, as the camera shoots her running behind its trunk and pans up as she can be heard, and partially seen, climbing it,

and then ending on a shot of her sitting on a branch. But the best example of this comes at the end, where the camera stays on Oskar being held underwater while we get glimpses of Eli massacring the bullies, like one's feet sliding right below the surface before his severed head dunks down into the water and Jimmy's hand getting sliced off as he continues grasping Oskar's hair.

I think another reason for the often sustained, wide cinematography is so you can take in how incredibly beautiful the film is. The ever-present snow makes the many exteriors breathtaking to look at, both in the dark, nighttime scenes and in the daytime ones, be they overcast or sunny, like in the field trip scene. The best-looking shots in my opinion are when Oskar goes to visit his father and you get these awesome vistas of his farmhouse and the snow-covered countryside all around it. Also, the interiors of Erik's house look and feel quite nice

and inviting, especially in a daytime scene in the kitchen which is bathed in a lovely, bluish-white light from the snow outside; by contrast, much of the other interiors, like Eli's apartment, the interiors of Oskar's school, and such, have a rather dull, bland feel that can be best summed up as "meh." Speaking of which, as lovely as the film is, there's always a feeling of dark grimness underneath it all, particularly in how so many scenes play out in the dead of night when it's virtually pitch black all around around and the temperature is undoubtedly

well below zero. This is one of those movies where you can almost literally feel how damn cold this place is, which, along with those often unappealing interiors, adds all the more to the melancholy, loneliness, and sadness of many of these characters' existences, and also helps already horrific scenes like Hakan draining the man's blood and Jocke's frozen body being recovered from the pond feel especially uncomfortable and skin-crawling.

The importance of the snow and cold is the reason why, rather than actually shoot in Blackeberg, where the story is set, Alfredson opted instead to shoot much further up north, in Lulea (they did shoot some exterior scenes in a studio where the temperature was lowered). He did, however, shoot some scenes in Blackeberg, such as when Eli attacks Virginia, and the distinctively-shaped subway station there features prominently in some shadows. Alfredson couldn't shoot the scene where Eli attacks Jocke at the actual underpass in Blackeberg where it happens in the book, as it was too big to fit into the shot, so he instead used a much smaller one in the nearby area of Racksta.

The main setting for much of the film is the small apartment complex where Oskar and Eli live, which is a pretty unassuming, bland-looking place, with its most distinguishing feature being its courtyard with the jungle gym, which is where the two of them meet and have many of their initial interactions. Their individual apartments are almost total opposites from each other, with Oskar and Yvonne's being nothing special in the way it looks or is furnished, and having a bit of that blandness much of the other settings do, but if nothing else, it

has the feeling of a home, with a pleasant-looking living room and kitchen, and Oskar's room having an especially warm feel to it, with his bed being up against a wall that has wallpaper depicting a view of a forest, along with a desk he works at and several cabinets and drawers, one of which is where he keeps his scrapbook of newspaper clippings of violent crimes. Eli and Hakan's apartment, however, is almost completely barren, with no furniture save for a small round table, a bunch of junk on it and the floor behind it, a

kitchen with only the bare essentials, and Eli sleeping in a bathtub since she has no bed, which makes you wonder where Hakan slept. This place is definitely where you get the most of that bland, dull look, which Alfredson and cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema termed "spray lighting," that also permeates much of the other settings, with the interiors of Oskar's school and his main classroom coming off as especially white and clinical, even more so than the interiors of the hospital, which

still look pretty depressing. Even the cafe where Lacke and his friends meet up to drink has a bit of that look as well, and while Gosta's apartment, on the whole, looks alright and has something of a nice quaintness to it, the presence of his numerous cats hurts it a bit and gives you that kind of icky feeling you get when you're in the home of someone who has more pets than they should.

One thing I never realized until just recently is that the movie is set in the early 80's, specifically in February of 1982 (the book's story is set in the previous October). However, aside from some dates in newspaper articles, which you're likely to miss, occasional conversations about the Russians, and the lack of any modern technology, notably in how characters listen to music by playing records, it never draws any attention to it whatsoever. Moreover, the time period itself has no real bearing on the story at all, and the exact month in which it

takes place in the movie was changed from October of 1981 to the following February simply to validate the amount of snowfall, which often doesn't occur in such quantity before December, so I don't know why Lindqvist decided to set it then to begin with. I guess it was to add just a bit more of a sense of darkness and uncertainty to the movie's tone but, for me, it's little more than a vague bit of window dressing.

I think one of the movie's biggest appeals is not only that it's a horror story which centers around kids, with one of them being a supernatural creature, but also because it doesn't sugarcoat how hard and ugly the world can be for a child. Much like a Stephen King story, it doesn't shy away from how horrendous the bullying Oskar endures is, both physically and mentally. By extension, it also shows how frustrating it can be for a bullied kid to try to protect themselves, as Oskar's fighting back against Conny leads to his mother getting a call

from the school, with her anger at him over it suggesting she may not realize, or even care, just what he was going through on a daily basis. And yet, Conny and his cronies, at one point, beat on Oskar right outside the school and his homeroom teacher, who was sitting by a window, did nothing when she surely must have heard or saw it (ironically, she comes to Conny's aid when Oskar whacks him). Because of this double standard, it's small wonder why Oskar has his fantasies of

getting revenge, fantasies no doubt further exacerbated by his rather unhealthy interest in violent crimes in his area. Additionally, the film also offers a bit of a look at how hard it can be when you're the child of divorced parents, with Oskar's relationship with Yvonne being rather strained, while he has a better one with his father, only for that to go south when he learns of his alcoholism.

But, for as much as I can praise the movie, I'm not able to fully embrace it and love it the way so many others do. Every time I've watched it, I've always felt like I was being kept at arm's length when it came to the core of Oskar and Eli's relationship, like I was watching from the outside rather than really getting swept up by it. There are several reasons for this, but the main one is that I can't completely get into Oskar's character. As well written as he is and as much crap as he goes through in the story, he often comes off as too

emotionally stunted for my tastes. I get that he's supposed to be repressed and meek, and you can tell that the physical and mental torment he's put through does get to him, but I think I would've cared about him and his relationship with Eli more if he were an everyday, boy-next-door type with more overt emotions. I think that also would've helped the bullying, his fantasies about revenge, and his fighting back feel all the more palpable to me. And while we're on the subject of the kids, I find some of the stuff involving them to be rather

off-putting, to the point where it makes my skin crawl. That scene where Eli climbs into bed with Oskar naked is a major example. Though nothing sexual happens, thankfully, the idea of a twelve-year old girl being naked in bed with a boy skeeves me out, I don't care if she really is a centuries-old vampire. The same also goes, at least a little bit, for Hakan's infatuation with Eli. It may be very rudimentary in its execution, and I'm very glad they left out the novel's portrayal of him as a

pedophile, but that still makes me uncomfortable. And speaking of uncomfortable, that shot of Eli's naked crotch? Ew! (It was a mannequin in reality but, in context of the movie...) I don't care if it's meant as a vague clue to her actual gender, that was something I really didn't need to see. In fact, I didn't learn its meaning until later, when someone else told me, as I definitely wasn't going to look at it in detail to find out. (And no, I'm not putting a shot of it here, either. Look it up yourselves, if you're so curious.)

What also keeps me from truly being able to get into the movie is the rather detached, cold manner in which it's put together. While I admire Tomas Alfredson's restrained filmmaking and how calm and quiet the movie is, with the often hushed tones of the performers and the music being somewhat sparse, it also makes it come off as emotionally stunted itself. Like with a Ridley Scott film, I often find myself more interested in its technical prowess and amazing visuals rather than the story, and while those wide, fixed shots work for the scenes where someone is attacked, it tends to make everything else come off as chilly as the setting. And finally, at almost two hours, the movie feels more drawn out than it should be; I think it could've used some more editing.

While not exceedingly gory, the film does have some gruesome moments, like when Hakan drains the one guy of his blood, Eli's attacks on her victims, which leave blood all around her mouth and on her shirt, when Oskar cuts his own hand open in order to form a blood bond with her, and when Eli enters Oskar's apartment before she's invited in and you see blood oozing out of her eyes, ears, pores, and various orifices. But what's more unsettling than the actual blood in these scenes are the implications of the sound effects (the

film has a very rich soundtrack, in general), like the blood funneling into the jug as it drains out of the man's sliced open neck, the gooey chewing and slurping sounds of Eli feeding on her victims, and the crunching and dripping while Eli bleeds out in that one scene. As far as unsettling makeups go, you have the horrific aftermath of Hakan using acid to disfigure his face, which leaves the right side badly melted, with half of his nose separate from the other, ugly holes burned into his cheek

and around his mouth, two more such holes around his temple, and an ear that's almost hanging off. And when Eli asks Oskar, "Be me for a little while," you get a brief glimpse of Eli as an elderly woman, a shot that's as unsettling as it is sad. There are also a fair amount of visual effects shots, which Alfredson hoped to make almost unnoticeable. While some of them are fairly obvious, like the CG cats in the scene where Gosta's pets attack now the vampiric Virginia or the glimpses of Eli slaughtering the bullies at the end, most of them are imperceptible and even astonishing when you realize that they are visual effects.

The film opens on a quiet, nighttime snowfall, as Oskar is introduced as he has one of his fantasies of revenge on his bullies, which consists of him walking around his room in his underwear, mimicking their taunts of, "Squeal! Squeal like a pig!", and jabbing at the air with a knife. We also get a brief glimpse of both Hakan and Eli as they drive to the apartment complex, parking underneath Oskar's window and giving him his first glimpse of Eli when Hakan opens the door for her. While Oskar goes back to his fantasy, the two

of them move in and he then hears them talking on the other side of his bedroom wall. Hakan begins putting cardboard up on one of their apartment's windows, while down below, a drunken Lacke stops by to relieve himself and looks up to see him doing so. The next day at school, a policeman gives a lecture to Oskar's class about the various methods the police have for determining foul play. Oskar himself proves to have quite a knack for it when he correctly guesses how they determined a

burnt house was set aflame to hide the murder that took place there: there was no smoke in the dead person's lungs. The policeman is impressed, but when Oskar admits he knew it because he reads a lot of books, he asks, "What kind of books would that be?", as he and the teacher chuckle. After that, we get our first look at the abuse Oskar suffers, with Conny backing up against a locker, pushing his nose in while saying, "Oink," commenting, "What a good piggy you are," and then flicking his nose before departing with his lackeys, making snorting sounds.

As Oskar comes back home that night, Hakan prepares some equipment, such as a jug, a funnel, a knife, a flashlight, and a bottle with a large nozzle and face mask on it. He packs all of it in a small, leather case and departs. Later, as darkness falls over a jogging path, he waits under a streetlamp when a young man comes his way. He stops him, asks him for the time, and when the man says he doesn't have a watch, he then asks Hakan what he's holding behind his back. Hakan shows him the

bottle, saying it contains halothane (which is a general anesthetic), and then, before he can react, he forces the face mask on him and sprays, rendering him unconscious within seconds. He takes the man's body off the path and into the woods, hoisting him upside down from a tree, places the funnel in the jug, positions them underneath him, and uses the knife to slice open his throat. He watches as the blood pours down into the jug, looking around to make sure no one's coming, when a large, white poodle named Ricky

comes running through the woods and stops upon seeing him. His owners aren't too far behind him, as he barks at Hakan. He tries to shoo the dog away but he doesn't budge, and when Hakan hears the sound of his owners approaching, calling for him, he quickly gathers up his equipment and runs off into the snow. Shortly afterward, Ricky's owners come across him and the hanging body, with Ricky walking over and lapping up the blood that's dripping onto the snow. Back at the apartments, Oskar has his first encounter with Eli when he goes

outside into the courtyard, stabbing at a tree there while having one of his revenge fantasies. Later, while riding the train back to Blackeberg, Hakan checks his case and realizes he forgot the jug containing the blood, a mistake Eli severely admonishes him for when he returns home. All he does is quietly ask for her forgiveness.

After Oskar's next day at school, where the teacher tells them of the murder and asks them to go talk to the counselor about it if they need to, prompting Conny to ask, "Is it all right to kill the killer if you happen to meet him?", he cuts out the newspaper article on the crime and places it in his scrapbook while listening to a record in his room. The following night, he goes out into the courtyard and, again, meets up with Eli while sitting on the jungle gym, attempting to solve a Rubik's cube. Though

she initially tries to get him to leave, she becomes intrigued by the cube and he explains it to her and lets her borrow it to see if she can solve it. As she fiddles with it, he notes that she has a strange smell to her, and also asks if she's not cold from being outside in very light clothing, to which she answers, "I guess I've forgotten how." Oskar then heads back inside, while Eli feels severe hunger pangs. This leads to her tricking, killing, and feeding on Jocke's blood as he walks home after spending some time with Lacke. Gosta witnesses

the whole thing from his apartment's balcony and, after Oskar hears Eli and Hakan arguing next door, and Hakan is then seen heading out, Gosta goes to the local diner and tells everyone what happened. He leads to them spot, and while Jocke's body is no longer there, they do find blood in the snow. Elsewhere, Hakan drags the body into the woods and disposes of it by dumping it in a small pond, then uses a metal pole to force it to sink. The next day, Oskar, while heading out to school, finds the Rubik's cube on the jungle gym, solved. That night, he meets up with Eli again, asking her how she solved it, as well as finally learning her name and realizing that she's rather odd, given her answers to his questions.

The next day, Oskar stays after school for a bit, writing down Morse code from an encyclopedia. As the other kids leave the classroom, he hides it from Conny, but when he leaves and heads out, Conny confronts him, demanding he show him what he wrote. Oskar refuses, only for Martin to grab him from behind and Andreas, after being prompted by Conny, to start smacking his legs with a stick. But when Andreas stops, as he can't take it, Conny has Martin take over and he smacks Oskar

across the face, ripping his left cheek. The boys then run off, mocking Oskar, as he stands there in shock. Although he tells his mother that he hurt himself during recess, when he meets with Eli to teach her the Morse code, he tells her the truth when she sees the bandage on his cheek. She tells him, "Hit back. Hard," and when he says there are three of them, she says, "Hit back even harder. Hit harder than you dare, then they'll stop." She also promises to help him if he needs it, touching his

hand. They then head inside their respective apartments to practice the Morse code, with Hakan clearly becoming jealous when Eli tells him to move away from the wall. Back at school, after PE, Oskar asks his teacher about the after school weight-lifting program, and that night, he takes Eli to a candy dispenser and buys a bag of candy. When Eli approaches the booth, the owner's cat snarls at her, prompting her to stand away and wait for Oskar. She tells him she can't eat the candy but does opt to try a piece regardless, only to retch from it in the next scene. Oskar apologizes, hugging her, and she asks him the strange question, "If I weren't a girl, would you like me anyway?", to which he answers, "I suppose so."

One night, Hakan prepares for another attempt at harvesting blood for Eli, telling her there are people in the neighborhood who recognize him and know he lives with her, which is why he's packing a jar of acid. He also asks her not to see Oskar that night, and her only response is to softly rub his right cheek. He then heads to a high school, watches some student play a game of basketball in the gym, and later, as the place is closing up and the lights are turned off, he anesthetizes one of the

students, Matte. He hangs him upside down in a changing room and prepares to cut his throat, when the lights inside the room are shut off as well. Outside the school, two of Matte's friends wait for him and, wondering what's taking so long, head back inside. In the changing room, Hakan attempts to continue his task with a flashlight, when someone knocks on the window outside, yelling for Matte, while his friends bang on the dressing room's door. Matte regains consciousness and starts

yelling to be let down, as Hakan sits down on a bench, despondent and defeated. Matte's struggling then knocks over the jar of acid, which is on the bench below where he's hanging. Hakan takes the jar, which spilled nearly all of its contents on Matte's jacket on the floor, as the boy begins yelling for help. He hides in the shower in the back, as Matte's friends turn the lights back on and begin ramming the door in order to get in. When they manage to breach it and help Matte get down,

Hakan realizes he's trapped and pours the acid on his face to keep from being identified. Back at his and Eli's apartment, she sits on the spot against the wall where he used to sleep, knowing that something has happened to him. Meanwhile, Oskar begins his after school weight-lifting program, only to find afterward that his pants have been thrown into a urinal, forcing him to walk home in the cold in just his workout shorts. That night, Eli hears news reports of Hakan's arrest and how he managed to disfigure himself to keep from being

identified. She goes to the hospital where he's being kept and learns from the nurse working the night desk in the lobby that he's on the seventh floor. She walks back outside, revealing that she's bare foot, and the sympathetic nurse follows her out there, only to find no sign of her. She heads back inside while, unbeknownst to her, Eli climbs up the face of the building and sits outside the window of Hakan's room. She taps on the window, awakening him, and he slowly gets out of bed and walks over to it with his IV stand. She asks to be

let in but Hakan motions that he can't speak and opens the window. He removes a respirator from his throat and allows her to feed on his blood before willingly falling out to his death, his body banging on the canopy above the front door. She quickly leaves, while elsewhere, Lacke, while in bed with Virginia, tells her he'd love to kill the kid who murdered Jocke.

Following the scene where Eli comes to Oskar, spends the night with him, and agrees to go steady, he wakes up the next morning to find her gone, having left a note for him. That day, he and his class go on a field trip to a frozen pond, where their teacher warns them of a hole in the ice. After Conny taunts him, asking, "Fancy a swim?", Oskar wanders over the spot where Hakan hid Jocke's body, finding the small metal pole he used to force the body under the water. While the teacher tells a

little girl to go relieve herself behind a nearby tree, Oskar is, again, confronted by Conny and his lackeys, the former threatening to push him through the hole. Oskar warns him that he'll use the metal pole on him if he tries anything but Conny doesn't believe he's suddenly become brave enough to fight back. Although Martin and Andreas are reluctant to join in for fear of what their teacher will do, Conny is determined to push Oskar in. He heads towards him, only for Oskar to swing the

pole and hit him right in the ear. Conny drops to his knees and starts screaming in pain, while at the same time, the two girls are heard screaming as well. While Oskar's homeroom teacher runs to see what's going on with the boys, the other teacher goes to the girls and is shocked to discover what they've found: Jocke's frozen body. Later, he's removed from the ice using a chainsaw, while Oskar is made to tell his father what happened over the phone, but given what we hear of his side of the conversation, Erik doesn't seem to be as upset as

Yvonne. Eli meets Oskar after school and he takes her down to the basement, where he tells her how he stood up for himself and sent Conny to the ER. He then turns the light on and, as they hang out, he takes out his knife, cuts his hand, and tries to get Eli to do the same. But the sight of his blood awakens Eli's hunger for it, forcing her to lap up the blood that dripped onto the floor and then run away to keep from harming Oskar.

Elsewhere, Lacke, Virginia, and some of their other friends try to convince Gosta to go to the police and tell what he saw, something he's reluctant to do. That's when Lacke snaps at Virginia when she tries to comfort him, saying she's cold and doesn't understand the type of friendship he and Jocke had, making her storm out. Lacke follows after her, trying to apologize, but she wants none of it and heads up a flight of stairs and into a park-like area, where Eli jumps her from a tree. Lacke runs up to

see Eli holding Virginia to the ground and feeding on her blood. He quickly kicks her off and sees to Virginia, when Eli hears two of their friends approaching. She runs off, while Lacke tries to apologize for what he said to Virginia. The next day, she awakens with a start in her bed, as she feels a burning sensation on her right index finger. Confused as to what just happened, she gets out of bed and opens the blinds, only to recoil from the sunlight and quickly drop them back down. She

then goes into the bathroom and looks at herself in the mirror, removing the bandage to reveal two large bite marks, as well as find herself drawn to the smell of the blood. Meanwhile, Oskar, after learning his father is an alcoholic during another visit with him, heeds the words Eli wrote on the note for him, "I must be gone and live, or stay and die," and catches a ride back to Blackeberg. At the same time, Virginia runs to the spot where Gosta saw Jocke get attacked, searching for some remaining blood in the snow, and then heads to his apartment.

There, Lacke is talking with Gosta, when one of his many cats suddenly rears up and snarls. Gosta picks it up and, hearing his door open, sees Virginia standing there and invites her in. She slowly walks in, seeming out of it, and when she enters the living room, Lacke gets up to speak with her, when all of the cats hiss and snarl at her. Seeing what's going on, Virginia attempts to leave but Lacke grabs her, saying he's been worried about her. Gosta, who also realizes something is seriously wrong, walks out onto his balcony with

one of the cats and closes the door. Virginia fights to get away from Lacke, when one of the cats latches onto her leg and bites. The other cats swarm and attack her, as Gosta watches from the balcony, terrified. Lacke pounds on the door, yelling at him it, as Virginia flings the cats across the room and then stumbles towards the door and flings one cat onto the glass. With many cats still attached to her and attacking her, she runs out the door and stumbles down the stairs leading from the apartment. In the next cut, she's taken to the

hospital, flailing around on a gurney as two orderlies wheel her down to a room. Meanwhile, Oskar makes it back to his apartment complex, goes to Eli's door, and taps in Morse code on it. She lets him into the small space just beyond the door but closes the door leading into the actual apartment between them. There, she confirms that she is a vampire, before letting him in and showing him a metal, egg-like object on the table, which she claims is worth a lot of money. She has Oskar put

his finger on top of it, only for it to fall apart and reveal a golden ball inside. Oskar then goes to leave, saying he has to put up flyers in order to make some money, when Eli offers him money herself. Oskar refuses to take it, saying she got it from people she killed, though Eli claims it was given to her, "By different people." For a moment, it seems as though Eli isn't going to allow him to leave, as she blocks the doorway of the kitchen, which they're in, but when he asks, she does allow

him to pass. Back in the hospital, Lacke tells Virginia, who's strapped to the bed in her room, about how he plans to get a hold of a lot of money so they can buy a cottage in the country. However, she tells him she thinks Eli infected her with something, adding, "I don't want to live." The next day, a male nurse comes in to take a blood sample, when Virginia asks him to open the blinds. He does and the sunlight fills the room, causing her to burst into flames so intense, they reach up to the ceiling.

That night, while he's at home by himself, Eli pays Oskar a visit. He answers the door for her and beckons for her to come in, but she tells him he has to actually invite her. Curious, he asks what would happen if he didn't and, again, beckons her in a non-verbal manner. She walks in and, after he closes the door, he watches as she begins to bleed out from various orifices all over her body. Horrified, Oskar tells her that she can come in and the hemorrhaging stops just as quickly as it started, after which he hugs her. Later, she cleans herself

up, while he puts on the record of the song he listened to earlier. He allows her to put on one of his mother's dresses, which fits her nicely. But then, the doorbell rings and Oskar quickly turns off the music, leads Eli into his bedroom, and allows her to escape through the window, while his mother yells for him to let her in. Once Eli enters her own apartment through the window, Oskar goes to open the door for his mother. The next day, he awakens in Eli's apartment, where he finds a note from her, telling her she's in the bathroom and asking if he

wants to hang out that night. At the same time, Lacke finds his way to the apartments and heads up to Eli's. He cautiously walks through her door and looks around, finding that all the windows are covered by cardboard. He then goes into the kitchen and takes a small knife, unaware that Oskar is hiding beneath the table in there. Lacke uses the knife to enter the bathroom door and walks in and finds that the light switch doesn't work. He removes a small spread covering the tub and then

finds a blanket below that, under which is Eli, sleeping. Unaware that Oskar is behind him, he prepares to kill Eli with the knife, but decides to remove the cardboard from the window above the tub so he can see what he's doing. He cuts the corner of it, when Oskar, wielding his own knife, yells at him. Unaware that the sound awakened Eli, Lacke turns to face Oskar, putting his knife on the sink. Eli jumps him from behind, yanks him back through the doorway, and Oskar pushes the door to

where it's almost closed and walks off to the side. Through the door, Lacke is seen struggling with Eli, as she bites into him, with his bloody hand grabbing the door-frame before she pulls him back in and finishes him off. Terrified at the sounds of it, and nervous when he hears some knocking on the ceiling and the yelling of an angry neighbor, Oskar then feels Eli hug him from behind, thanking him for saving her.

Eli tells Oskar she must leave and gives him a long, lingering kiss. They then look at Lacke's body on the floor and back up at the ceiling when they hear more knocking and yelling. Oskar heads back to his apartment, where his distraught and angry mother lets him in. He goes straight for his room, ignoring Yvonne as she yells at him, and closes the door behind him and puts something under the knob. Loitering around and looking at a newspaper with a headline about the discovery of Jocke's body, he sees a car driving away outside.

Going next door, he finds Eli's apartment completely empty and then, just as he did in the opening, stands in his room and puts his hand on his window, with the courtyard now empty. The next day, he looks out the window, in tears about Eli leaving him, when the phone rings. It turns out to be Martin, who says their teacher wants to know if he's coming for a workout that night. He also tells him that he thinks Conny deserved what he got from Oskar and, again, asks if he's coming. It's then revealed that Martin is tricking Oskar, as

Conny, his older brother, Jimmy, and Andreas are standing outside the phone booth he's in, remarking on his acting ability. That night, Oskar goes to the bath house, where his teacher has him get in the pool for some water aerobics. On his way out of the locker room, Oskar sees Martin, while outside, Conny and Andreas use gasoline to light a dumpster on fire. Martin walks into the pool room and tells Oskar's teacher of this, sending him outside. Once he's gone, Jimmy appears, and he

and the other two head into the pool room. Jimmy orders the other kids out, draws his switchblade, and heads over to where Oskar is still wading in the pool. He tells him of the little contest they're going to have and that Oskar will get the knife in the eye if he's unable to stay under the water for three minutes, commenting, "An eye for an ear, right?" Conny knocks the small radio Oskar was working out to into the water, while Jimmy grabs his hair, counts down from five, and shoves his head under.

Right after he does this, the others seem to immediately get cold feet about it, nervously looking up at the clock on the wall, as the seconds slowly tick by. Andreas sits down off to the side, while Oskar already starts struggling to hold his breath down below. Conny and Martin try to tell Jimmy to stop but he yells at them to be quiet, as he's clearly getting some sadistic joy out of it. It then cuts to back below the water, when a loud bang is heard up above, followed by the sound of muffled screaming. A foot flails through the water

in front of Oskar, a set of feet are dragged through the very top of the surface before being yanked out, a severed head suddenly plunges down into the water, and Jimmy's arm is sliced off and floats down past Oskar, who's almost passed out by this point. He's pulled to the surface and opens his eyes to see Eli's face in front of him. They smile at each other, and then, in a wide shot, a terrified Andreas is shown sobbing nearby, as the other boys' slaughtered bodies line the poolside. That leads to the final scene, where Oskar is traveling on a train, while Eli is inside a crate in front of him. She taps something in Morse code (kiss) and he responds with some tapping of his own (small kiss).

As I've said, there are long stretches of the movie that don't feature any score, but when the music, by Johan Soderqvist, does come in, though sometimes very understated, it is often quite big and orchestral. While it does certainly allude to the horrific elements of the story, like when Eli attacks someone, Hakan harvests blood from the man on the jogging trail, Hakan hides Jocke's body, and the ordeal surrounding Virginia as she starts to become a vampire, more often than not, it swings between two types of moods: melancholic and tragic, and sweet and tender. The piece that opens the movie, when Eli and Hakan first arrive at the apartment complex, is an example of the former, with a big, sad-sounding string piece alluding to the tragic events that are about to unfold and the repercussions they will have. Eli herself has a theme that's much quieter but no less poignant, hinting at the tragedy of her existence, while also having an eerie, ethereal quality alluding to her otherworldly nature. Even Erik, Oskar's father, has a motif, a quiet, guitar piece, that's rather melancholic as well, playing on how much he loves Oskar and yet, he now has a problem with alcohol. A similar, much more downbeat version is heard when Oskar realizes this himself and heads back home. The more tender, warm pieces of music, as you can guess, are heard during the scenes between Oskar and Eli, and the score and movie close out on a piece of music that's both loving and poignant but also has an uncertainty to it, alluding to how there's no telling what the future has in store for them. There are also several songs heard in the film, the most notable one being Kvar I Min Bil, a blues-like song performed by Per Gessle, which was made specifically for the movie, meant to sound like it's from the 80's, and has a tune and sound to it that will stick in your head long after you hear it.

Let The Right One In is a prime example of a movie that I admire more than I actually enjoy. I think the direction by Tomas Alfredson is very solid, the visuals, cinematography, and locations are breathtaking, the actors give fairly good performances, Eli is a very fascinating character and there's plenty of ambiguity concerning her and the others that allow you to come up with your own conclusions, the film doesn't shy away from the dark side of childhood and has plenty of images and scenes that can make you squirm, many of the visual effects are done rather seamlessly, and the music score is effective in conveying all of the emotions this story entails and is literally bathed in. But, I can never really become engaged with the story as so many others have, as I wish the character of Oskar was played with more emotion, there are moments involving him and Eli that really skeeve me out and make uncomfortable, and as well-done as the direction is, I also feel that it makes the movie come off as emotionally detached and cold in and of itself. I can see why so many people love it, as there's a lot to love, and I do think it's very well-made, but there are many other vampire movies I'd much rather watch, including some I've already reviewed this month.