Review of Let the Right One In (2008) by Kendall I — 01 Oct 2012

A love like no other....that KILLS Twilight.

PLOT:Young Oskar (Kare Hedebrant) is the target of school bullies in his area. He just wants to get revenge and get some attention. Then, a young girl moves into his neighborhood named Eli (Lina Leandersson). She's a bit of a strange girl to Oskar. They tell each other about their problems and start to grow close and she helps Oskar try and face up to his bullies. But all this time, grisly, bloody murders are going on in town, and Eli seems to have a little bit of involvement in it. Could she be the murderer? What is so strange about her? Will Oskar face up to the bullies? Will Oskar and Eli fall in love? I'll leave you here. It is a basic plot, but it's executed so stylishly and perfectly. It's Twilight's BETTER version, if I were to compare it to this masterpeice, but I'm not, for it only shows disgrace.

ACTING:Brilliant. The best child actors you will ever see. Lina Leandersson glorifies the part of Eli in a way no other could (for this reason, I'm scared to see the American remake). Hedebrant does a pretty good job too. There's not a bad performance in here. It's all set.

SCORE:More than I'd expect from a horror. It had its jump-score moments, but it kept its beautiful, dramatic tone as you would expect in Brokeback Mountain.

EFFECTS:Surprisingly, they don't overdo it on the effects. They use blood when necessary, and CG when all else fails. I do find it a little misplaced at the end scene, but it glorifies the horror genre and actually unnerves me a little. The only effect that I didn't really care for was the effect used to make the cats fire up. It seems a little too fake looking, as in Case 39, which it pains me to say. But it doesn't phase this movie's brilliance, for there have been great horrors with little-to-no effects (Buried, The Wicker Man).

OTHER CONTENT:I absolutely loved this film. It is the only one of its kind to combine the vampire subgenre and the romance genre effectively. Notice I said EFFECTIVELY. This is truly a love like no other. I wish I had as great a relationship as Oskar and Eli. It makes me cry to think there is a love like that. Another thing about this is the scares. The scares aaren't your typical, Friday-night jump scares. They scare you with disturbing things mixed in with a little vampire-classy horror. I appreciate movies that try to do that. I also liked how they didn't go for cheesy new cliches ahem*Twilight*humph but kept the classy vampire cliches and added style to them, answering: If a vampire isn't invited in, what happens? How bad can a vampire get in the sun? How do they take their blood? The only cliche it adds is kind of typical: disturbing animals.

OVERALL,an epic vampire movie with a stylishly-executed plot, brilliant acting, beautiful score, almost perfect effects, a love story like no other, disturbing scares, and vampire class. Take that, Twilight!