Lat den ratte komma in / Let The Right One In (Swedish Vampire Film)

There's been loads of buzz about this film on the festival circuit recently and I got to see it yesterday. My fairly high expectations were hugely exceeded; it's fantastic. Anyone else seen this?

I saw the trailer, first groaning about another human/vampire bonding story (True Blood and the awful-looking Twilight being the other current fare), but by the end I was intrigued. Reviews have made me very excited indeed.

terrific movie.

Honestly, this was *such* a treat and about the only film I've seen this year that has exceeded the hype. Amazing central performances from the two young actors, by turns sweet, creepy and bloody and a finale which took my breath away.

Plus, the rules of vampirism are integral to the story, but don't feel tacked on or cheesy in a realistic setting. Without getting into spoilers there's an element of a vampire's power which is used to play with the viewer and as the credits rolled I realised that I'd been totally bamboozled by this. I felt stupid but very happy.

not sure what you're talking about?

******serious spoilers********

The final scene on the train could be seen as Eli and Oskar escaping to make a life together, but the other interpretation is that Oskar has basically been glamoured/bewitched by Eli (as vampires are able to) and has a life of serving her needs in store, like Hakan did previously. It struck me that the way the film makes the viewer feel empathy, tenderness and concern for Eli is making us feel like Oskar does, and we're entranced by her in the same way, ignoring her murderous traits. Also, there are several shots throughout the film where her (I think cgi enhanced) eyes are the focus and thinking back this felt like the hypnotic gaze. Might just be my interpretation though!

*******no more spoilers********

SPOILERS

ya i pretty much got that... my feeling was that he was basically a young version of the old dude she arrives with at the beginning and his fate is basically to become him. i didn't necessarily think she'd bewitched him though (and i think it kinda makes the story weaker and less poignant if she did)

SPOIOLERSDKSLDK

I suppose part of what I liked so much about this as well was that there's loads of it that is open to interpretation and reflection. That and the way the finale plays out, which frankly was absolutely fucking incredible and has to go into the all-time top 10 horror movie moments for me. I'm really hoping it gets a proper release in the UK so that I can see it again on a BIG screen.

i agree this was completely awesome and would highly recommend it. i'll write more later.

yeah this was awesome

Just saw this last night, in fact. Very good. I went in expecting a conventional horror film but it was perhaps more effective that it was not. I also agree w/Slocki's interpretation.

yeah i agree. i'd prefer to think that it was just abt 2 lonely ppl rather than just some sort of vampire hypnosis

A little nugget from the internet reveals that the morse tapped out on the box in the final scene is Swedish for "little kiss". So cool, hopefully the dvd will have director's commentary etc.

seeing tonight. Didn't recognize Morrissey title.

Great film, the book is also excellent - looking forward to reading the rest of the author's work as it's translated.

It had its moments (cat attack) and was stylishly executed. It was also basically a lugubrious Afterschool Special for goth kids.

i think she was glamouring him to a certain extent but it wears off as the film goes on. the scene where he sees her castration scar shows him what "she" really is and he is fine with that in the end because she has proven that she cares for him.

Neither I nor the three other people I saw this with knew what that scar was meant to indicate. I guess it was telegraphed by the way she kept saying "what if I wasn't a girl?" -- but I guess I just thought she meant a normal, human, living girl.

Yeah, I thought that too at first. I guess it doesn't matter much since the film mainly offers the shot of the castration scar and it only does so very quickly. I guess the book gets much deeper into this backstory.

Neither I nor the three other people I saw this with knew what that scar was meant to indicate. I guess it was telegraphed by the way she kept saying "what if I wasn't a girl?" -- but I guess I just thought she meant a normal, human, living girl.

Same here. Was kind of baffled by that shot until I read this interview with the director. (Apparently the actress's voice was even overdubbed to make it sound less feminine.)

this was really good. cute story.

what was going on with oskar's dad and beardy creep?

gay?

yeah i didnt get that scene either. at first i thought he was gay but then he just got really depressed when the bearded dude turned up?

or alcoholic?

probably both. i just read it as showing that the dad had someone (or something) else in his life who he cared about and it took away from the limited time he had with oskar.

This was pretty good. Destined to be overvalued for underperforming, maybe, and never once very scary ... but I appreciate it freezing up the vampire genre.

should i see this or twilight

Haven't seen the latter and probably never will, so I guess I recommend this one.

Not read this whole thread b/c of spoilers, so someone have pity, please: is this still showing anywhere in NYC??

It's at the Angelika.

v4h1d, see this

or alcoholic?

i looked this up on imdb and i think they were saying that the book draws this out a little more, but yeah his dad is a recovering/relapsed alky and this guy is a trigger, which the son recognizes.

def got some molesty vibes from him tho

Oh man it kills me living in a town that won't show this. I guess I'll just have to watch...Bolt.

and never once very scary

No way! Every time she barked like a dog and jumped or clamped onto someone and they did that sped-up crazy movement on her, I found myself both frightened and revolted.

I thought because of you people who said the ending made you happy, that I could look forward to some kind of redemption...but no!!! Eli taking Oskar away to be exactly like the old guy who died for her, that is not redemptive to me at all. Eli is a canker, a leeching, consuming canker, and her story is tragic and not her fault but still, that's the tension, right? Between her animal desire to LIVE and the horror that makes it possible. The woman who self-combusts, she's the other choice; the rational, human choice.

this was super fuckin good

This just came to my local theater. I have plans to see it Sunday or Monday night. Thanks to ILX, I am excited.

saw this tonight, liked it a lot. the filmmaking was imaginatively low-key (big scene at the end is the obvious example, but all the way through the choice of what's shown and how, plus really terrific sound design -- a lot of the movie happens on the soundtrack). kids were great. i didn't read the ending as exactly deterministic. obviously oskar could end up like the previous keeper, but i don't think the movie is cynical about eli's affection for him.

anyway after watching 30 days of night and i am legend last month i was bitching about how there were no new angles left in vampire movies, so it's nice to be proven wrong.

found a good post about it on another forum (SPOILERS etc):

i know in the book they discuss Eli’s gender in a bit more depth. The Castration was a part of becoming a Vampire. In the past Eli was tortured as a part of some sort of ritual. But Eli was very much a boy. That said, as he/she was only 12 at the i’d guess puberty hadn’t set in fully, and im sure it’s easier to get people to do things for you as a lil girl than a boy.
Another point that is far more explicit in the book is that Eli’s old handler or watcher is a pedophile.
you can sort of see this in the film with the moments of almost disgust Eli show her handler.
in terms of Eli’s outward gender choices, i wondered is Eli changes her appearance depending on who her handler is. We never really know how old Eli is , just that she has “been 12 for a very long time.” So i’d say it’s fair to imagine she has had several handlers. Could it be that if they have been in the past someone like the old man, a pedophile that also has to live outside normal society, then Eli would present as a boy or a girl depending on her handlers taste as a way of keeping them?
With Oskar, Eli sees a replacement, so yes there is a lot of manipulation in her treatment of him. In an odd way Eli’s behaviour towards Oskar is almost that of a predatory adult grooming a young child. You take someone weak, alone, maybe with a broken family etc and make them feel strong and special when they are with you. You cut them off from their traditional support network. but at the same time there appears to be something pure and honest in Eli’s treatment of Oskar.
In Oskar she has found someone that accepts Eli as Eli. Not a boy or a girl or a monster, not a perverse way to fulfill aberrant sexual desire, just someone to hold and love. At the same time Eli needs a new handler and cant have that person be someone too weak to look after Eli in the daylight.
I think Eli is almost beyond thinking about things in terms of good or evil. She is so old and been around for so long that she sees nothing wrong with genuinely loving Oskar while knowingly using and manipulating him for her own ends. She is able to accept the dual nature of her relationship without any internal conflict. That makes her less (or more ?) than human in away as it is (IMO) almost psychotic behaviour, but then again, Eli isn’t human anymore.

this was really good.

this didn't make a lick of sense. thumbs down from me.

you really thought it didn't make any sense? i thought it was pretty damn straightforward.

Enjoyed this.

Loved this.
Scene w/Eli climbing up the side of the hospital got big laughs in the showing I saw.
Pool scene was so well done.

Pool scene was so well done.

Ditto ditto ditto. Loved this. Didn't get the castration scar until the internet explained it, though. I was more, "Woah, you'd be crucified for showing underage genitals in an Australian movie."

Writer Lindqvist's zombie novel "Handling the Undead" comes out in English next month.

No one I know got the castration thing.

I read ILX first, so I did...still didn't "get" it, though, it would require actual explanation.

I found this an interesting but surprisingly unpleasant movie. Oskar was fantastic, reminded me of kids I knew. Pool scene was great, as were all the scenes around the woman Eli bit.

Just watched this.

Enjoyed it for the most part, refreshing take on the vampire theme at the very least. Wouldn't say it was 'awesome' though.

Strangely no castration scar scene in the version I watched, at least didn't notice one.

Thought the Conny kid had a bit of a Depp look to him.

Strangely no castration scar scene in the version I watched, at least didn't notice one.

happens super quick in the scene where she's changing into kid's mom's dress and the kid peeks in. I didn't know what the hell it was supposed to be until jaxon told me to read the wiki. (apparently a flashback showing that part of the backstory was cut from the movie ... thankfully, imo, I was glad some of the more gnarly stuff was left vague)

i'd put this in the good-not-great category. definitely enjoyed it

ah, got it.

I suppose this was inevitable

It seems like only last week that I declared Let The Right One In was one of 2008’s must see movies. I was since informed that the film is already getting an English language remake by Hammer Films and Spitfire Pictures. And tonight Variety announced that Cloverfield director Matt Reeves has signed on to helm the film. Overture Films is fast-tracking the project, so expect the movie to be released sometime next year.

The DVD came out Tuesday! In the US anyway.

saw this last night - great, great film, slow-moving and very 'scandanavian' (i don't know what i mean by that exactly, just that it had the familiar texture of other scandinavian films i've seen).

totally didn't get the castration thing either. my bf's response when i IM'd this ilx revelation made me lol:
[5:08:45 PM] ytth: now i don't like the movie anymore
[5:08:45 PM] ytth: too gay
[5:08:50 PM] ytth: brokeback vampire

had absolutely no idea eli's voice was overdubbed - great work there. the thing that creeped me out the most were the more subtle sounds, during the silent spaces: the wet lip/tongue/breathing noises by not just eli but also oskar.

Watching/reading interviews with the director, it seems NOBODY got the castration thing unless they'd read the book, and pretty much EVERYONE assumes (wrongly, as it turns out) that the dad is gay.

i thought it was more of an alcoholic thing with his dad

in retrospect, the castration thing now seems obvious - what else could it mean, i guess? but at the time i was totally confused.

in retrospect, the castration thing now seems obvious - what else could it mean, i guess? but at the time i was totally confused.

But even if you do miss it, the movie isn't contradicting itself.

Really enjoyed this.

the main kid in this is basically Luke Haines

I like how the adults are all clueless and divorced from how fucked up the kids are (gym teacher just wandering out to put out a fire and leaving the pool unattended!); the bullying stuff and its eventual conclusion was freaking me out more than most of the actual vampire-violence was

acid-face/creepy self sacrifice was the most disturbing bit though

I liked how it manipulates you into not paying full attention to what an unsettling, morally awkward film it is; never occurred that it was a deliberate trick in line with the vampire's ability but yeah

When I got this book three years ago, that was what hooked me to try to do this, because of my memories of those things. I suppose the strongest elements of fear are the fantasies of the scary things that could happen. When scary things do happen, you tend not to be so afraid -- it's the fantasy that's the scariest.

from that interview; the implied violence from the kids is unnerving to the point that them then being dismembered comes as a relief

Just read the book over the weekend, and looking forward to seeing the film on Wednesday. Hadn't occurred to me from reading the book initially that Eli had manipulated Oskar into being his/her handler a la Hakan, but having read this thread that now makes a lot of sense.

One thing that struck me about the book was the amount of absent fathers - Oskar's is estranged, Eli's isn't mentioned, Tommy's is dead... it's like all the fathers have failed. An awful lot of divorced people too; there's barely a functional familial relationship in the whole book.

i didnt like this nearly as much as everyone else :/ too gothy

Rly? This is probably the least gothy take on a vampire film I've ever seen...

(except Near Dark, possibly)

SPOILERS

Thoroughly enjoyed it, and think it worked better as a film than as a book. The book is not amazingly well written in terms of prose styling, and adds many subplots and extraneous characters that aren't entirely necessary to the spirit of the main storyline; it's worth a read to explain further Eli's origin etc, though, and because it deals explicitly with a number of issues that the film doens't really approach - Hakan is a paedophile, for instance, it's not suggested that Oskar's dad is gay, architecture and place play a more important role (beyond Lacke's brief aside about the housing estate before the cat attack), and there's a very definite sense of a critique of absent fathers. The book also has quite a lot more brutal blood-spilling and undead-stalking. Some of the chronology of events is better explained in the book; things are occasionally telegraphed a little in the film, even though the book only takes place over about two weeks.

Both the leads were great. I knew Eli's voice was dubbed by that of an older actress, but you couldn't tell at all from a technical point of view, testament to the excellent sound design. I loved her barking and sucking noises, and that the blood-letting was a messy, thick, dark, clotty experience - her dirty fingernails and dry, stained lips. Also, as pointed out by my friend Andy after the film, it was great that Oskar was slightly buck-toothed and you saw his teeth all the time, but we NEVER saw Eli's vampire teeth. Oskar was just gangly enough and awkward enough to be at that not-quite-a-child, not-quite-an-adolescent point, and Eli was just androgenous enough and old-before-her-appearance enough.

I'm certain Oskar wasn't still in the pool at the end, which some people I know suggested (meaning that he died there and the rest was dream); what people think was his white hair under the water was almost certainly, I believe, blood dispersing from the severed arm of Conny's brother. The train journey could be dead-Oskar's journey to heaven, but I don't buy that.

It was very sweet, very moving, and very beautiful. Love how it was shot, with all the super-shallow depth of field; it gave a really dreamlike quality to it without over-egging the pudding at all.

As to the nature of the relationship... I don't think Eli was consciously duping / hypnotising / grooming Oskar in order to make him her next enabler, I do think she was after companionship almost as much as he was, BUT, having said that, she is still a vampire. She drinks blood, however reluctantly, and she kills people to do it, however remorsefully. She also has no qualms about pulling the heads off children.

I think it's interesting to contrast her child's vampire-morality with Virginia's adult vampire-morality. Virginia realises what she is and has perspective and experience enough to not want to live with it, and hence machines her own combustion and demise. Eli has no such moral perspective and life experience, and so just continues however she can, presumably by enslaving enablers and using them until they are no longer any use to her. Her relationship with them maybe loving, but she is still a vampire. They still exist in her company in order to do horrific things to ensure her survival, and, as it states in the book that she is 200 years old, she must have been through several different enablers. Oskar may or may not be the first who starts out at her own age.

Perhaps his blanket acceptance of her ("would you still like me if I wasn't a a girl?" "I suppose so") may mean that their relationship is more reciprocal and heartening than hers with Hakan (in the book it's made very clear that she's a perfect sexual fantasy, an obsession, for Hakan, in quite alarming ways), but she is still a vampire. She's not a sweet little girl, or an innocent, castrated little boy. She was, but she's a vampire now, and that has to define her.

I loved Oskar's running nose, and his clumsy diction (isn't Swedish a bizarre language? Bits sound just like English and almost don't need subtitles, and other bits sound like someone clearing their throat). I loved Eli's eyes (especially that glimpse of them undilating in the cellar). Great film.

Also, yeah, not at all gothy.

best movie

yeah i thought it was tight

also scik i like your review a lot but i thought that architecture and place were really important in the film in that they made sweden look like a fucking depressing place. definitely fit in perfectly with the mood they were creating

I guess so; in the book it was more explicitly discussed, I guess, rather than just being shown. It was shown pretty effectively, though, to be fair; it did look depressing.

saw this yesterday. not a masterpiece but really really good. i loved how it was part vampire/part bully revenge/part teen romance. my heart almost sank in that scene at the end and even tho i knew what was gonna happen i liked how they filmed it from a slightly unusual POV. i loved how sweet/kinda cherubic oskar looked too. really good film. prob only 2nd to the wrestler for films i liked the most this year.

Great writeup, SM.

The book is not amazingly well written in terms of prose styling, and adds many subplots and extraneous characters that aren't entirely necessary to the spirit of the main storyline.

I'd never even heard of the book before seeing the film, so approached these in the reverse order. Leaving aside the possibility that the english translation could be partly to blame for the clumsiness of some of the book (and I think it probably is), it seems to me that Lindqvist's own screenplay is so much more elegant and focused; maybe the process of having to review, and edit and strip down his book and turn it into a script helped to unlock its potential.

Yes, definitely; I wouldn't be at all surprised if Lindqvist turned to screenwriting more fully now; he's re-doing this with the Cloverfield director for an American audience now, isn't he? But as "a different adaptation of the novel" as opposed to "a remake of the film".

I disliked this, alas. Ponderous and self-important. Morbius OTM upthread about this being a 115-minute "After School Special." The two kids were terrific within the limitations of their roles, but I almost wanted the vampire to express some JOY at being a vampire and having these cool superpowers; angst comes way too easily to this genre. The only person for whom I felt any feelings was the woman bit two-thirds of the way through; but, again, the director lets no scene carry any moral weight. When she bursts into flame, the scene is shot and arranged as if she were a pile of leaves in the backyard.

This is Twilight's lugubrious older brother.

Great film!
Available streaming on Netflixbox360!

I almost wanted the vampire to express some JOY at being a vampire and having these cool superpowers

I see what you mean, but she's been like that for decades--it's probably starting to pall a bit, what with the whole having to drink blood and stay out of the sunlight thing.

Is it really just decades? I was thinking it was centuries.

the bullying stuff and its eventual conclusion was freaking me out more than most of the actual vampire-violence was

But that's very much by intention and design!

Eli is terrible, but not cruel. Human is no less monstrous than vampire. etc etc.

I can hardly be the first to say that this is The Hunger remade by Lukas Moodysson - from the former, the sense of the vampires as being a little bit sad and lonely, while from the later all the stuff about children in Sweden. It seemed like at least some of the dialogue between Eli and Oskar was straight out of Together.

Great film though.

One other funny thing about this film was how angelic the main bully character looked.

Just watched this; chilling, odd, brutal and unique. The incongruous sweetness of the love story is tempered by the lurking implication that Oskar may well end up a deeply unhappy middle-aged shell like the old guy who was Eli's human companion in the first half of the film.

Swimming pool scene was A+

so i just saw this last night, the overdub in english, and i have to say i thought it was great.

how can the pedophilic implications be overlooked? multiple times i was caught in the catch 22 of the "12 yr old but she's a vampire who could be hundreds of yrs old but still . . ."

then come to find out she aint even a girl? i guess in sweden the winters are looong, and you need some stuff to think about, eh? my girl and i exchanged a bewildered look after that blip where they show oskar spyin. i couldn't help bringing up Balthus in the post-movie discussion.

iple times i was caught in the catch 22 of the "12 yr old but she's a vampire who could be hundreds of yrs old but still . . ."

hi you are a perv

perv? for wondering how come people have only barely scratched this aspect of the movie?

yeah you dirty perv

tbf, I assume jdc is talking about the relationship between Eli and her guardian.

Also:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2009/06/cloverfield-director-sinks-teeth-into-swedish-vampire-tale.html

'Cloverfield' director sinks teeth into Swedish vampire tale
01:52 PM PT, Jun 29 2009

Matt Reeves After having directed the "Godzilla"-for-the-Twitter-generation known as "Cloverfield," Matt Reeves was in meetings in early 2008 trying to set up a small drama he had written.

An executive at Overture Films asked him to take a look at a then-unreleased Swedish horror film, "Let the Right One In," a hauntingly touching film about a lonely 12-year-old boy who realizes the kind girl who moved in next door is a vampire.

"I was just hooked," Reeves recalled recently. "I was so taken with the story and I had a very personal reaction. It reminded me a lot of my childhood, with the metaphor that the hard times of your pre-adolescent, early adolescent moment, that painful experience is a horror."

Reeves signed on to adapt and direct an American remake of the cult hit, now called "Let Me In," the English translation of John Ajvide Lindqvist's original novel. He recently finished a second draft of the script, currently set in Reagan-era Colorado, and is scouting locations, looking to maintain the original story's chilly, snow-swept environs. The film is scheduled for a fall 2010 theatrical release.

Reeves is also working with casting director Avy Kaufman -- who previously found kids for "The Sixth Sense" and "The Ice Storm" -- to find the two leads, which Reeves vows will not be aged-up to make the film more of a smoldering "Twilight"-style romance.

"There's definitely people who have a real bull's-eye on the film," Reeves said, "and I can understand because of people's' love of the [original] film that there's this cynicism that I'll come in and trash it, when in fact I have nothing but respect for the film. I'm so drawn to it for personal and not mercenary reasons, my feeling about it is if I didn't feel a personal connection and feel it could be its own film, I wouldn't be doing it. I hope people give us a chance."

-- Mark Olsen

By Reagan-era Colorado, he means at a ski lodge where ne'er-do-well ski patrollers live and (to?) party. Just you watch, by the time it hits theaters it'll be called "Knock Knock, Who's Dead?"

colorado? try alaska. latitude was a hugely important re: setting

xpost lol

oh boy, already a remake? sheesh!

and yes the gaurdian. yes the bearded guy.

wait so is it a remake of the film or another adaptation of the novel

or an adaptation of the translation of the novel

or

keep reading thread title as let the right comma in

do the right one in thing

how can the pedophilic implications be overlooked? multiple times i was caught in the catch 22 of the "12 yr old but she's a vampire who could be hundreds of yrs old but still . . ."

The vampire child is a pedophile?!? Vampires remain stuck at the age they were made a vampire, so the child is still 12 years old. The old guy is definitely a "weirdo" (or Renfield). And of course there's a lot of hints that the old guy is a pedophile although only hinted at, nothing more. The film focuses on the relationship withe bullied boy (and how he replaces the old guy).

One of the most awesome (horror) films I have seen in a long time.

Yes it's a fantastic movie. I don't get the pedophile thing, cause in my mind, it's pretty clear the old guy met Ellie when he was a kid, just like Oskar. Maybe the book gives more information about that.

Ah, actually a great line of thinking which is actually even more apt (seeing how there's a parallel being drawn between the two)

it says upthread somewhere i think that the book makes it more clear that the adult is a pedophile

Yes. It's all in the book. Which is damn good, and readily available in English. Read it, already!

OK I did not actually read the thread because I don't want to ruin it for myself but I'm reading this right now and really enjoying it. I can't wait to finish it so I can watch the movie.

oh man this was so good.

SPOILERS IN THE FORM OF A QUESTION:

Still trying to decide if Eli leaves the one sort of tubby remorseful bully kid alive in the pool scene - hes still over to the side in the same exact pose, no blood around him.

my impression was yes

yeah i think he survives. (to try to explain wtf happened, good luck with that.)

just watched this tonight and yeah you can hear him crying softly.

really liked it and as noted previously the sound/sounds were superb throughout.

also of note: you see Eli's teeth in one of the deleted scenes and they are normal.

I finally saw this. Excellent stuff.

I saw this at a one off screening at my local Odeon about a couple of weeks back. Very touching, very charming ittle film. It may end up being my favourite of the year.

Yeah that one boy was spared (xpost).

i liked how the blood sucking was this intensely private act. for all the vampires it's this uncontrollable urge that demands some privacy. when oskar's blood drips onto the floor eli is like "go AWAY!!" and when lacke's wife first smells her own blood, it's like she loses herself for a second.

otm about it feeling "scandinavian" at least if wallander episodes are anything to go by. all is calm and deliberate. the characters were often made tiny against these giant landscapes.

not thrilled by the unproblematic "hit back, really hard" revenge fulfillment fantasy.

btw lina leandersson as eli was freaking phenomenal. every moment she was onscreen was great.

not thrilled by the unproblematic "hit back, really hard" revenge fulfillment fantasy.

The tone of the film was such that it didn't feel like that to me. The scene was mainly macabre and unsettling.

in some ways it felt like a scandinavian pre-teen version of "american beauty"

sheesh way to turn a guy off it.

really want to see this, why because it sound intrsting

I like this answer from the Q&A upthread:

What the hell are you listening to?

Well, I usually don't say that because it's a very private thing. It almost feels like taking my clothes off to tell what music I listen to.

haha yeah sorry it is actually much much much better than american beauty!

you really shouldn't read threads before you've seen the movie though. you should know better.

points of similarity:

- main character gets no respect from peers
- he has unhappy home life
- he decides to start lifting weights
- he becomes attracted to a young girl
- he gets back at all the fuckers who did him wrong

thankfully we are spared any lingering shots of plastic bags floating in the wind.

nah that's 8 mile shurely?

Rocky

i don't mean to slight it, it really does hold its spooky mood very very well.

yeah i'm not gonna let you put me off this no matter how hard you're trying.

'unproblematic "hit back, really hard" revenge fulfillment fantasy.'

Without spoiling the resolution, it's hard to see how the main character's situation at the end of the film as unproblematic. Look at what happened to the last guy.

The book kinda resolves that ambiguity though, arguably.

xpost exactly.

Man, I love that movie. After I saw it, I kept telling everyone to see it. Finally my friend mentioned she'd rent it. Hmm, should ask her if she finally did. Awesome awesome movie. I really have to read the book!

i hated this. it made no sense at all, to me.

Just re-watched it with a friend - he loved the film but read somewhere that the English subtitles on the English version are different from those on the US version? "Subtle, but make a difference" he says.

Not sure how the movie can make no sense at all. The first time I watched it I was trying to figure out a bit what was going on for the first half hour or so, this time round it was pretty straightforward.

The english overdub version is awful.

Yeah the English subtitles were inexplicably changed for the US DVD release. The company releasing the DVD got so many complaints that they put back in the theatrical subtitles for all subsequent pressings of the DVD. However, a lot of the copies in stores are still the ones without the proper theatrical subtitles.

i hated this. it made no sense at all, to me.

It's about a boy (or girl! WHO KNOWS!) who likes to suck blooooooood.

Thank god for the English overdub, or else I would never have seen this film, which I watched during Thursday's blizzard and I thoroughly enjoyed.

Felt that they should have done the proposed flashback scene ("be me a little") though, because the castration scar scene seemed so random. We really didn't know what to make of it.

Do people in Sweden really tuck in their sweaters? Same planet, different worlds, I guess.

Thank god for the English overdub, or else I would never have seen this film

Wait, really?

haven't seen this but the title kinda reads like some obscure patois

or swedish, even, yes

X-post Not if you're a Morrissey fan. Like the author.

The alternative title was The Girl Least Likely To.

Wait, really?

Well, not necessarily "never". But the lack of a dub track tends to negatively influence whether I'll buy a film.

We accidentally bought Pan's Labyrinth a couple weeks ago, and only found out that it had no dub when we put it in the DVD player. It seemed like a pretty successful and critically lauded film, but they couldn't afford to do a dub track?

Does the dub correspond to the famously bad subtitles?

kingkongodzilla I had the exact same thought about the dad's sweater!! it was the most bizarre thing in the movie

Just asked my Swedish g/f about the sweater thing and she said "nobody does that" and I said "but what about the dad in LDRKI?" and she said "well that was the 70s, and he was gay"

She tucks her pants into her socks tho, so...

the dad was only gay according to American misreadings of that scene. he was a recovering alcoholic, and the neighbor was his drinking buddy. hence Oskar's look of dismay when he came to visit.

I think you misread my post. My Swedish g/f thought he was gay. It may be a misreading of the scene, but no need to blame a nationality.

HAHa

would rather watch twilight than sit through this again

Hearing okay things about the remake in that it doesn't dumb it down, but I also get the impression that if you've seen the Swedish one, why bother? Just glad they didn't "do a Vanishing", if you will.

The ad makes it look like they _drastically_ dumbed it down but i imagine i'll give this a try when it's on video.

it's fine, they didnt dumb it down really, but at the same time, what's the point

will probably see this because i like the new kids and i want to see the original again so maybe this will be enough

What I've seen from the trailer its practically a shot for shot remake, and while the young male lead (Oskar) is remarkably good, but I didn't buy (from brief exposure) that the vampire lead (Eli) was a old soul. The actress is just not selling the same nauseous disdain for life. The clean, optimistic architecture of 1970s Stockholm also has a huge edge over nondescript vacation ski resort in the remake.

Again hard to judge from the trailer, but I already made all of my friends/relatives see Låt den rätte komma in in the theatrical subtitles version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reRRAEVHq8E

Nah, it looks far less dour and bleak than the original, not feeling it. I don't entirely see the financial sense in remaking it - it still seems to be aiming for the arthouse horror crowd, who would mostly be perfectly willing to watch the original, if they haven't already.

dont judge a movie by its trailer imo

Ahhh, spoilsport. Not even a little bit?

It's already got nine extremely positive reviews from people familiar with the original

This might be one of the few times I hope the remake is schlockier and looser than the original.

I generally support remaking dull films, so...

i'd be amazed if it were worse that the orig.

About as good as the original, with some scene stagings more impressive (tense rollover wreck shot from inside) and others worse (the pool scene, unfor).

Won't win any fans among those in this thread who couldn't stand orig's magisterial sad-sackery, but the reward is that an American movie deals with preteen sexuality (and sexual ambiguity) in a way that subtitles can't help audiences here feel less uncomfortable about. Lotta nervous tittering in my audience.

saw the original (although I had to do it in three sittings due to extreme fatigue), quite enjoyed it.

Armond White has panned the remake, so that's the final endorsement I needed to go see it.

loved the remake. much of it was faithful, but had enough flourishes to keep it as its own entity. I liked the pool scene, and how they didn't show Abby's face when he looked up at her. And the nice added on ending.

The opening made me really edgy though, as the corny speeding ambulance opening and "are you leading a cult?" dialogue made me fear it was going to go way OTT, but it never even came close to doing that, so good stuff.

Aside from the pool scene -- I liked the Swedish lo-fi climax -- the remake is significantly better! US kid actors being the best in the world is part of it, I think.

I've come around to the idea over the last few weeks that I'll probably see the remake.

what helps is that after a year-plus, I remembered about 4 scenes from the original...

remake a rare instance where an American version is more bleak than the European original.

also think i should just give up and embrace the TEAL AND ORANGE TEAL AND ORANGE

glad some people agree here, i saw the remake first then the original this week, thought the remake was better, and definitely darker and more bleak. plus the love story in the remake was really really powerful for me, like more real and affecting than most love stories in many more conventional films.

the american version took everything wrong with the original and got rid of it. No CGI cats, 12-year-old v, the boy wasn't complicit in the cops murder, pool scene played as less of a revenge fantasy. + Elias Koteas and Richard Jenkins. basically How To Remake 101.

cool; didn't watch the remake yet but now I will.

just saw this, very affecting and disturbing. I didn't quite "get" the castration thing but I did sort of think there might be something like that there -- I did catch what looked like it might have been a scar in *that* scene, and there was the fact that s/he kept repeating "I'm not a girl", which I thought had to be hinting at something more than just "I'm a vampire" unless there was a translation issue. In re the dad being or not being gay, I did momentarily think "oh, the dad's boyfriend showed up," but then the way the scene progressed I figured it was just his enabling drinking buddy.

Definitely a lot goig on with gender and homosexuality-related themes in any case, and I thought it was interesting that the bully has a sort of feminine face and that there was something vaguely sexual about the way he glares at the main character. I don't know if I buy the 1:1 (i.e. everything matching up perfectly, fantasy to reality) pedophile allegory above, but I do think some elements of that stuff are present.

lo those heady days of 2008. i went to see this with beloved ilxor j3ss3. i think i won a ticket! beautiful snow.

let the ratte komma in