Light On Dark Water

Let the Right One In

I just finished watching this strange and powerful Swedish vampire movie, which was recommended to me some time ago by Rob G (at least I think that's who it was). I thought I vaguely remembered him, or someone, suggesting that there were Christian resonances to be found in it. And maybe there are a few, but I'm having a lot of trouble convincing myself that it isn't, in the end, pretty sick. 

This is definitely not your average vampire movie. The phenomenon of vampirism is not treated as alluring or glamorous at all. And yet in the end the evil is accepted, if not actually embraced, and there are grounds for thinking that the story that unfolds after the movie ends is not going to be at all pretty. It's essentially a sort of love story between a 12 year old boy and the vampire, a 12 year old girl (well, maybe) who has been 12 for some very long period of time. And that aspect of it–the love story–is moving. But, without giving too much away, it seems to me that in the end the love is destined to become satanic.

I am not recommending it to anyone who doesn't like horror films. I don't, and probably wouldn't have watched this one if I'd known how gruesome it was going to be. But I'm not sorry I did. It'll stay with me for a while, and not in a bad way. I think Rob may have said it's like a vampire movie done by Bergman. That's a good description.

If anybody has seen it and wants to have a spoilers-allowed discussion, I'd love to hear what you thought.

Maclin Horton
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9 responses to “Let the Right One In”

  1. Rob G

    (spoilers)
    I agree with pretty much everything you write here, Mac. I don’t recall saying there was anything “Christian” about it — can’t imagine what that might be — but with you I found the ending morally disturbing.
    As a film, though, I thought it was extremely well done — no doubt one of the best vampire films ever. The set piece at the swimming pool which ends the movie is masterful. So I’d say it can be recommended, but only with the caveats you mention.
    I have a couple friends who found the very brief nudity in the movie to be the most disturbing thing about it, thinking that it had a pedophilic ring to it. While I do think that that scene was quite unnecessary, it went by so fast that I didn’t find it as problematic as they did. To me it was far more disturbing to have the childhood affection of the boy transformed into something murderous. That aspect of the ending left a decidedly bad taste in my mouth.
    “it seems to me that in the end the love is destined to become satanic.”
    Exactly.

    Reply
  2. Craig

    I have seen this film, and I have praised it. It is one of the few horror films that I have seen that was genuinely frightening. I found that it really cast a spell over me. I appreciated that it was so atypical for its type: it makes Interview with the Vampire look ridiculous.
    It is interesting that you highlight the violence; I thought it was remarkably un-violent, at least explicitly. Most of the violence, as I recall, was in the shadows or off-screen (or above water).
    I am generally not an enthusiast for — or even tolerant of — horror films, but the feeling of this one has stayed with me, and that must mean that the filmmaker did something right.

    Reply
  3. Mac

    I have a pretty low tolerance for blood and gore, and it doesn’t have to be very explicit. For instance, the first murder scene, with the victim hanging upside down and the killer doing something, was very disturbing to me even though you’re seeing it from behind the killer’s back and can’t see what he’s doing. The establishment of an atmosphere has a lot to do with it, and we’re agreed that this one does a great job in that department. The feeling has stayed with me, too, though unfortunately so have some rather unpleasant images (which is the biggest reason I avoid horror movies–difficulty getting them out of my head later).
    It was so good in so many ways that I find myself now, on the day after, really regretting its ultimate perversity. I can think of some other directions it might have taken that would have made me admire it much more in substance as well as in execution.
    I can’t imagine that anyone found that one glimpse of nudity remotely erotic or even sexual, considering that all you see are scars. Do y’all know anything about the book on which it’s based? Last night after I finished watching it I looked for more info, reviews etc., as I often do when a movie really intrigues me. I found what I thought was the Wikipedia entry for the film, and didn’t notice at first that it was for the book. It fills in some background that’s left unknown in the movie, and it’s pretty yucky stuff, stuff I’d just as soon not have known. The book seems to be more perverse than the movie.
    And did you watch the interview with the director included on the dvd? He says that it’s up to the viewer to decide whether the movie has a happy ending or not, but he thinks it does. I don’t, because it seems almost inevitable that Oskar is eventually going to take the place of the old man. And even if he doesn’t, Eli is going to keep on killing people, even though she doesn’t really want to. In my mind I have constructed a story of the future of the two in which they are redeemed, but that can only happen if Eli sacrifices her life. I’d like to think that eventually happens. The fact that I care is testimony to the film’s power.
    Rob, I don’t know where I got the idea that you had said something positive about its spiritual aspects. Maybe you just said it was interesting.

    Reply
  4. Rob G

    “Rob, I don’t know where I got the idea that you had said something positive about its spiritual aspects”
    Maybe it was another film we were discussing around the same time that I commented on.
    When I watched that director interview I found his comment rather chilling. As you say, I can’t foresee a happy ending there unless Eli is killed.

    Reply
  5. Mac

    Could be.
    Yeah, it’s like all those people who are going to be Eli’s food supply just don’t really matter.
    It occurred to me that Eli’s intervention at the end is something of a return to a pagan view of vengeful idiosyncratic gods. She doesn’t just save Oskar, which she could have done without killing anyone, and she doesn’t just kill Jimmy, but she also kills Conny, and the other kid who who was at least a little reluctant. She does allow the one who was just a tag-along to live. It’s a pretty terrible vengeance. The slightly reluctant one may have had some pangs of conscience–even Conny did–but Eli is not concerned with such nuances. They participated actively, they die.

    Reply
  6. Rob G

    That’s a good point, Mac, and one that I hadn’t thought of. That whole sequence was handled so well cinematically that the moral aspect of it hadn’t occurred to me.

    Reply
  7. Mac

    It makes me think of Sigrid Undset’s Gunnar’s Daughter. Ever read that? My old review of it from Caelum et Terra is here.
    I suppose it’s slightly crazy, but I really want to modify or extend the story in the movie, because I liked so much about it, especially of course Oskar and Eli.

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  8. Janet

    I can’t even get past the picture on the cover.
    AMDG

    Reply
  9. Mac

    Good, because it is definitely not for you. Wasn’t for my wife, either. She opted out merely on the fact that it was a modern vampire movie, which was just as well, because she wouldn’t have made it past the first ten minutes.

    Reply

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