LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (2008) Review

Written by: wolfman1959   

A lonely, bullied at school 12 year old boy strikes up a friendship with a 12 year old girl who moves in next door who in fact is a vampire.

Quiet, haunting Swedish made film that really shouldn't work , but on the whole does apart from one major disapointment for me which i'll go into later. Now the film relies heavily on the two young lead performers to make it work, and this succeeds very well, especially in the case of the girl played by Lina Leandersson , who really gets over her pain, frustration and loneliness at being a vampire.

Film is atmospheric, and you don't really know what to expect, and film despite using the old horror standby of vampirism still manages to give it a fresh approach. Film hasd some beautiful moments and moving ones, and the traditional moments are there as well, and then well, i especially liked the vampire's attacks which without overdoing the gore are viciously carried out. It doesn't all work there is an unintentionally hilairous scene involving a houseful of cats attacking a woman victim who is on her way to becoming a vampire that had me chortling heartily and i don't think that was the intention.

Now to the major disapointment for me, the ending, without giving anything away, i just think the makers just run out of ideas and hit a block on how to end it. I was expecting a lot more and feel that all that had gone before was also building up to something much, much better than what we actually get, and for me stops the film from becoming a classic.Having said that, this deserves credit for being a good, compelling, different vampire film.Film is about to be "Americanised" which i don't think will work nearly as well, although i hope they come up with a better ending, but i'm not holding my breath.