A review by Brooks Rich
I was ready to go do this film from the first month this blog was up. But I wanted to wait until October. Plus an added bonus it's included with our spectacular four way vampire coverage. This is not only one of my favorite horror films of all time, this is just one of my favorite films period. It's probably my second favorite foreign language film as well behind Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. Let the Right One In is a beautifully haunting coming of age film while also being a tragic and brutal horror film. Out of the four films covered for our vampire special, this is probably the quietest one.
The film follows twelve-year-old Oskar, a lonely boy living in a suburb of Stockholm who is tormented at school by bullies. One day he meets a quiet girl named Eli in the courtyard of his apartment complex. A quiet girl who only comes out at night.
This film is gorgeous. Director Tomas Alfredson is a very visual director and he finds the beauty in the stark and bleak Stockholm winter. He also has an almost detached view when it comes to the vampire attacks. For example the first real one is shot at a distance inside a tunnel. It is a terrifying sequence and Alfredson makes us feel how visceral a vampire attack would be.
Slight spoiler in the next paragraph. I won't go into details but I do need to discuss the climax of this film, which is probably the scene most remembered from the film. So just skip the next paragraph if you want or better yet go and watch the film and then come back and read the rest of this.
The film's climax is an amazing and horrifying sequence that takes place at an indoor pool. It features both a supernatural monster and human monsters. It's bloody and brutal but a majority of the carnage happens off screen as the camera stays under the surface of the pool. This film would be worth it for that scene alone. It's a choice from a director like this that makes films stand out. The sequence would have been fine I'm sure if shot in the expected traditional sense but Alfredson makes it unforgettable with the simple aesthetic choice of a static shot underwater.
See this film. If you like vampire films or foreign language films, especially Scandinavian films, this has something for you. And just for fun I'm going to make a bold statement to end this review. In 2008 when this film came out, a majority of critics and film goers said The Dark Knight was the best film of the year. In my opinion this film blows that film out of the water. This is truly a modern horror masterpiece.
I was ready to go do this film from the first month this blog was up. But I wanted to wait until October. Plus an added bonus it's included with our spectacular four way vampire coverage. This is not only one of my favorite horror films of all time, this is just one of my favorite films period. It's probably my second favorite foreign language film as well behind Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. Let the Right One In is a beautifully haunting coming of age film while also being a tragic and brutal horror film. Out of the four films covered for our vampire special, this is probably the quietest one.
The film follows twelve-year-old Oskar, a lonely boy living in a suburb of Stockholm who is tormented at school by bullies. One day he meets a quiet girl named Eli in the courtyard of his apartment complex. A quiet girl who only comes out at night.
This film is gorgeous. Director Tomas Alfredson is a very visual director and he finds the beauty in the stark and bleak Stockholm winter. He also has an almost detached view when it comes to the vampire attacks. For example the first real one is shot at a distance inside a tunnel. It is a terrifying sequence and Alfredson makes us feel how visceral a vampire attack would be.
Slight spoiler in the next paragraph. I won't go into details but I do need to discuss the climax of this film, which is probably the scene most remembered from the film. So just skip the next paragraph if you want or better yet go and watch the film and then come back and read the rest of this.
The film's climax is an amazing and horrifying sequence that takes place at an indoor pool. It features both a supernatural monster and human monsters. It's bloody and brutal but a majority of the carnage happens off screen as the camera stays under the surface of the pool. This film would be worth it for that scene alone. It's a choice from a director like this that makes films stand out. The sequence would have been fine I'm sure if shot in the expected traditional sense but Alfredson makes it unforgettable with the simple aesthetic choice of a static shot underwater.
See this film. If you like vampire films or foreign language films, especially Scandinavian films, this has something for you. And just for fun I'm going to make a bold statement to end this review. In 2008 when this film came out, a majority of critics and film goers said The Dark Knight was the best film of the year. In my opinion this film blows that film out of the water. This is truly a modern horror masterpiece.
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