This was probably my favorite aspect of the whole thing. The cinematography's stillness is so unsettling, but really works. The final scene is especially quite great, at once humorous, disturbing, and moving. That's a hard trio to pull off.

Luckily the rest of the movie is up to par. Just all around excellent, definitely one of the best of last year.

Yay! Don't forget it when voting for the WOKJ Movie Awards : )

Wow, just... wow. 2008 to this point had a number of great films, but was missing its signature highlight. While I'll let this sink in, I think Let the Right One In may very well be that one.

I agree with the sentiment that this works much more brilliantly when seen as grim and horrific than 'happy'... having that undercover of deep, skin-crawling horribleness and evil under the romantic, fantasiacal exterior, is partly the intention and effect. In truth Eli takes the audience on as much of her innocent ride as she does Oskar and her previous suitor(s) she'd grown to dominate. She plays every note right in the innocent girl part to create the obsession, playing on both his and our fantasies and idealizations

The last scene really is brilliant and brings the entire film together, from Eli's intentions pulling in Oskar from the first lines she/we hear from him to the bullying storyline and his growing bloodlust throughout. Again it's a trick on the audience... when Oskar whacks Conny, our reaction is happiness that he finally stands up for himself, but in reality he's sealing his fate. Instead of becoming stronger and more independent as the audience believes, he's unknowingly becoming more and more of a controlled pawn. (An important clue to Eli's real nature is early in the film after the first murder - the unseen ruthless voice yelling at her slave is far from that of the innocent girl Oskar befriends. One can assume that over time, her youthful illusion wore off more and more for the man, not that it mattered.) In the amazing pool scene, when her face pops out of the water we feel a sense of victory and welcome a happy ending. At this point Eli has the audience under her spell too, enough for us to feel a sense of fufillment when a horrible event like three boys being slaughtered happens.

An argument can be made that Eli is one of the best screen villains of the last couple decades, if not further. At the least she's one of the most terrifyingly succesful and good at what she does... she absolutely wins here. What makes her so frightening aside from her obvious vampire deadlyness, is her ability to gain control of anyone she wants at any time. She's so brilliantly above everyone else that neither the protaganist or us catch onto her being a villain at all... she's two steps ahead of everyone at all times. It also helps that Lina Leandersson hits every single note perfectly, as does Kare Hadenbrant.

This is also probably the most perfectly shot and crafted film of last year in all its stillness and sublimeness... every single moment lingers and gets under your skin. Somehow despite it never embellishing its shots, its loaded with wow moments.

Just an amazing movie overall - quite possibly a masterpiece

5/5

Well....what did I tell ya?!

Honestly, I think if many more people at KJ had seen this...it could have even given TDK a run for its money at the WOKJ awards.

I don't view Eli as a villain but as a lonely victim of circumstance that's trying to survive, even though it requires such base action. Yes, she has ulterior motives, but there's a lot of shit she does that shows she cares for Oskar or will go out of her way for him, beyond trying to get a new assistant. Like the "you have to invite me in" part...

It is actually very much a love story still. I completely disagree with your assessment, Magnus

Coming-of-age? Probably not, no. But love story...definitely.

Its the love story of 2008 and certainly one of the best of the 2000s.

WALL-E?

How DARE you Loyal!?!

HOW DARE YOU!!!

LTROI is a more daring and more touching love story than WALL-E. And I liked WALL-E.

I would say its close between WALL-E and LTROI. I think the journey is further in the case of WALL-E but stronger in LTROI.

You're really bad at pretentiously reading into movies.

For the most part I agree with Tyler.

One of the reason why I loved this film so much is that it's effing romantic..

I just watched this tonight after reading this thread today. Really wonderful film. The cinematography truly was unnerving. It was actually quite a bit more disturbing/gruesome than I was expecting it to be, but I actually appreciated that.

Totally don't get the reading of Eli as a villain, though. Like others have said, it's something she has to do for her basic survival, and it's clear after her first killing onscreen of Jocke that it's something that pains her and fills her with remorse.

I did read that the morse code at the end on the train spelled out "kiss." Aw, it's kind of amazing how they juxtaposed the horror elements with the romance so well. I did cringe when she kissed him with blood all over her face, though.

I can't believe I waited so long to see this. One of the best movies of the decade. Those two kids gave incredible performances and I loved the tone of the film. Definite A

Wow, I didn't get that. I thought the scar

And the swimming pool scene at the end is probably the best of all 08.

9/10 -> A-

Wonderful movie. The first thing that pops into your mind is how beautiful it looks. The cinematography is awesome. Then after you stop admiring the movie, the story which moved at a slug's pace (but discretely discovering things along the way) starts to get going and never let's go.

The movie is seriously disturbing. I can't see how this movie ever managed to come together. It's just not something I can see in any country's filmography. But the Swedes were brave and we should be thankful. Certainly up among the best of 2008.

Finally got to see this, and it didn't dissapoint coming off my high expectations. Any shot with the two lovers was beautiful and the pool sequence was fucking unbelievable.

A-

Let the Right One In is a perfect and chilling horror piece that doesn't rely on big, expensive scenes to get it scares or message across. The plot is fairly simple, a vampire who hasn't aged coming to town in a hunt for blood, but there are so many underlining elements such as the romance between the two young stars that makes the film feel unique. The two main stars (Kåre Hedebrant and Lina Leandersson) do phenomonal bringing scares and a great sense of fear into their scenes. All the gruesome scenes leave chills for the time they are on and give that scare that many vampire films either gloss over or don't even touch at all. The cinematography is absolutely beautiful as is the script. It deserves all the wins it got and is definitely one of the best films of the past few years. Hopefully the US remake Let Me In, can at least be decent enough to not cause this great piece of work to be skipped over. It should hopefully cause many more to watch this. ****

I solemnly declare that I hate Oskar. There is constantly snot running out of his nose; if not, he is drinking pool water or running like a trunk. He and all his problems bore me immensely. The girl is okay, but the writer apparently did not think her interesting enough to spend more time on her 'life'. The US dubbing, finally, is an utter calamity. Is the bully supposed to sound like a squeaking wild sow? Are we that funny?

Four out of ten points.

Why ever would you watch a dubbed film?

I noticed it was a dubbed version when I opened the file. In retrospective, I am glad that I did not spend more time to download another version of such a film. And usually English dubbings aren't that bad.

A dark, sweet story. I'd like to read the book some time.

8/10