movie thoughts: Let The Right One In (2008)

[orangerful]

Let The Right One In

See that box art to my left here?  Looks spooky, huh?  Scary even? 

Yeah, well, the movie you're imagining from the box art and the random images you saw online?  It doesn't exist.  Instead, you have this movie, the most arranging-matches Vampire movie ever. 

And it does not make me want to visit Sweden any time soon.  The children are pasty, it's always covered in snow, and the adults are just fugly.  And no one seems too shocked when a child jumps on someone and drinks their blood. 

I don't know, I was expecting a lot more from this movie.  The actress that played the vampire had a very unique face, but I kept waiting for more story, more plot, more vampires!  Especially when we saw her eyes changes in the light, and even her face change when feeding...but no, these teases did not lead anywhere and, in the end, the movie was a bit of a let down.  It felt like it wanted to have some deeper meaning about life, death, killing for survival vs hurting for fun...but I never felt like it all came together. 

I know the rumor is that an American film studio has picked this up.  Something tells me it will bear little resemblance to this quiet, awkward film. 

Originally posted on orangerful.vox.com

Comments

[colls]

OMG! I'm Swedish!! The 'swan' in my name is for 'sven' (American-ized to Swanson... ) ~ how can you not like the Swedes...?!?!?!
oh, wait... I hate that side of the family.... never mind.... yea, my family's a little pasty and my aunt is kinda fugly.... ;) I swear she's the milkman's daughter and not technically in my gene pool.

Never seen this movie, and based on your review, I'm not going to bother looking it up. Besides, I've got BSG to re-watch... ;)

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

LOL! Nothing personal towards the Swedish peoples, I just don't feel this film would make anyone want to come to Sweden any time soon haha.

I need to get on that BSG rewatch! Maybe I'll do the miniseries while I'm packing on Thursday. :)

[colls]

LOL! yea, like the Swedes are such a "hot-racist-topic" here in Maryland. LOL! I had to poke fun at it b/c I never see "the Swedes" portrayed as anything.

I hadn't watched the miniseries since it aired. It's quite a shocker this week putting the scenes of 'The Oath' and 'Blood on the Scales' against the miniseries... very much a mind-frak. ;) Which is totally what I love about BSG.

Have a great time in FL! I'm flying to Ft Lauderdale in April, unfortunately it's for work...:(

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

I know I'm just going to spend the first hour of the miniseries going "OMG LOOK HOW YOUNG [insert name here] is! wittle baby face!" and the second hour will be me going "Oh man, I wonder if there are caps posted, I need to make an icon of [insert moment here]", followed by the third hour where I sit down and get totally sucked in to the show and don't get anything else done the rest of the night.

so looking forward to it. :D

[bittertwee.livejournal.com]

ok, my question to you on facebook was just answered.

So yeah. The weird thing about this film is that it got a handful of one star reviews early on imdb, followed by a mess of 5 (or 10, whatever the highest is) star reviews. My thing is that I don't know how to judge it. As an atmospheric art film, it's good. As a vampire film, well, eh. And I don't think it comes close to being a horror film, so I think we're going to have a lot of disappointed people if they're expecting that.

Problem 1) It's slooowww.
Problem 2) It's not scary. Very few scary things happen, and when they do, it's pretty tame. And much of that stuff is more funny than scary. (and I think intentionally funny, like in the early scene when the guy has just killed the kid and is trying to collect his blood, and he's thwarted by the dog. The fact that it's this silly foofy white poodle makes the whole scene funny- I have to believe that was an intentional choice on the part of the filmmakers. Anyway, the audience I saw it with laughed at good number of scenes, but the sense I got was that everyone thought it was supposed to be funny)
Problem 3) The film has nothing new whatsoever to add to the vampire genre. Oddball kid befriends another outcast, then finds out they're a vampire? Done. Vampire protects good guys from bad? Done. Vampire coming of age story? Done. Falling in love with vampire? Done. Weird things going on around town turn out to be caused by vampire? Done. There really is absolutely nothing new here.
Problem 4) some plot threads that go nowhere. The biggest was the whole "Would you like me if I wasn't a girl" thing. I didn't catch this, but apparently the reason we see the vampire's crotch was so we can see the stitches showing that "she" was once a "he" and had the key parts removed. (This is all from the book. yep, it was a book). The thing is, it goes by too fast to really catch what you're looking at, and then nothing comes of it. I thought maybe it would be tied into the fact that the kid's dad seemed to be possibly gay, but the filmmaker in an interview said that the dad was absolutely not gay- that all the uncomfortable looks when his male friend shows up had to do with the fact that they were drinking, and that the kid's dad was an alcoholic. Which also didn't go anywhere.

Anyway, I can see how the arthouse crowd (myself included) would have liked this as a bleak atmospheric character study, but I think marketing it as a horror film is going to result in much disappointment.

Oh, problem #6, and this is a problem no matter how you're looking at the film- The bullies were way cliched.

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I have to say the marketing for this film was all wrong. Does the book make it any more interesting? Amy and I were arguing over what we saw during the crotch-shot, and neither of us picked up on that. We also assumed the dad was gay. What's the point of having an art film if you don't go into this stuff?? The bullies were just cliche and nasty, but perhaps that was to make us not feel so bad when they were brutally ripped apart (off screen). Blah...I was expecting at least a GOTCHA moment, but nothing.

The scene with the cats was cool...

[bittertwee.livejournal.com]

I didn't read the book, I just read about it on the imdb reviews, so that's the only reason I know what the crotch-shot meant. And that's funny that you both thought dad was gay too. In the clip of an interview I saw, the filmmaker said he didn't understand why so many people read that into that scene, and I'm like, well, let's see, the kid and dad are having fun at dad's house, and then suddenly a hunky male friend walks in like he's really familiar with the place and everyone starts acting all uncomfortable and nervous. And the kid's looking back and forth between the two like he sort of understands but not really. Does that cover it?

ps. oh and I'm 1/4 Swedish. We may be pasty, but we brought you ABBA!

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

Was it just me or did they live in the same universe as Napoleon Dynamite? Why was it all so 80s???

I don't know any ABBA, except for Dancing Queen's chorus...

[bittertwee.livejournal.com]

whaa-a-what?? Not familiar with ABBA? You're kidding, right? Oh my my my my my, we'll have to do something about that..

I was confused about when the movie took place too, but I believe it was supposed to take place in the 80s. The offhand references to Russia (or probably they said the Soviet Union?) were apparently referring to some event that took place in the 80s that Swedes would have been familiar with.

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the whole movie I was a bit confused, but at the very end he had some Smurfs on his desk and I was like "I don't care how out of touch I think Sweden might be, there's no way Smurfs are still that popular with children in 2009...this must be the 80s!"

LOL, I'm still studying my B&S CD! I don't know if I should try to cram Abba on my iPod too!

[faeriesfolly.livejournal.com]

I may not be Swedish, but I am so pale that I reflect sunlight.

I now blame the Swedes for this. I am sure they had something to do with it, and not just the Scotch/Irish/English bits of my heritage.

From what you say, I haven't missed much from having no clue what this movie was, and I will continue on my way...blissfully unaware.

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

probably a good idea. Unless you're in the mood for an arranging-matches kind of movie, then pick it up. If you want a scary movie, avoid it. I think if I had known what I was getting myself into, I might have enjoyed it more. But I wanted a scary movie and was let down (we actually watched an episode of Angel before the movie, and I think the episode was scarier (it was "Hell Bound")

[admackbar.livejournal.com]

Interesting I really thought you really like it.. :)

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

I think this movie suffered from the same thing that In Bruges did for me - it was advertised completely WRONG. So I was all ready to watch one kind of movie and was very upset when they gave me something else. It takes a lot of build up for me to want to watch a Horror movie...so I was let down. If I had known nothing about it, I might have enjoyed it more...