TFV Anti-Twilight Month Review: Let the Right One In

And here we are, last movie in this special here we go.

We open on a snowy night at a suburb apartments as a boy named Oskar (played by Kare Hedebrant) practicing with a knife; cut away to an old man Hakan (played by Per Ragnar) and a little girl Eli (played by Lina Leandersson) in a taxi. Hakan and the Eli arrived at the same suburb apartments where Oskar lives. Oskar sees them getting out of the taxi and enter the apartment building before going to bed. The Hakan starts covering up the one window of their apartment; well that’s not suspicious at all <_<…..>_>. Cut to daytime at a school Oskar is being bullying by Conny (played by Patrik Rydmark) and his friends before they leave for P.E. At the apartments Hakan is packing up some items in a bag; two of which is a knife and some type of gas disbursal device with a breathing mask attached to it. Yeah still don’t see nothing suspicious here 0_0….>_>….<_<. Anyway Hakan is staying around at a footpath area until he spots a man walking by. He approaches the man only to force the breathing mask on him and gases him; OK may be there’s something suspicious about this guy. Later Hakan hangs the guy upside down, places a jug underneath him and cut’s the guy’s throat draining the blood out and into the jug. A little bit later a dog shows up as Hakan hears someone calling for the dog; he tries to scares off the dog but to no avail. Hakan quickly packs up and leaves the scene before anyone shows up, however, he leaves the jug of blood behind. Soon after two women show up looking for the dog only to come across the dead guy. Back at the apartment Oskar is outside with his knife stabbing a tree, apparently trying to toughen himself up against the bullies. Oskar soon turns around and sees Eli on a jungle gym and apparently not wearing a coat. Oskar asked where she lives and Eli response that she lives next door to him. Eli tells him that they can’t be friends; Oskar asked why but she doesn’t answer but goes back inside. Cut to Hakan returning home by train worried that he left the jug of blood behind; at home Eli (oddly her voice sounding older) is angry at Hakan. Hakan could do nothing but ask her to forgive him.


The next day Oskar is in class hearing about the murder that happened last night; after class Oskar is in the restroom as Conny and crew are looking for him. He stays in the restroom stall until they left; which gives him the chance to leave school and heads home. Cut to a café where a group of friends are having a chat; one guy Lacke (played by Peter Carlberg) noticed Hakan sitting by himself. Lacke sits with him trying to have a conversion but Hakan ignores him and soon leaves the café. Cut to nighttime Oskar heads to the jungle gym at the courtyard playing with his Rubik’s Cube. Eli shows up just watching him; the two started talking for a minute. Eli takes notice of his Rubik’s Cube so Oskar gives it to her to play; Oskar asked ain’t she cold and Eli answers no. Saying that she forgotten how; Oskar says that he’ll see her tomorrow and he leaves. Eli starts crouching in pain as her stomach starts rumbling. Cut to a bridge where Lacke and his friend Jocke (played by Mikael Rahm) are walking along and saying their goodbyes for the night. As Jocke walks under the bridge he hears Eli calling for help as she’s all huddled in the darkness. Say it with now, IT’S A TRAP! Jocke slowly walks towards Eli until he picks her up; however, Eli clamps on Jocke like a facehugger and feeds on him. Little does Eli know that a neighbor living across the bridge, Gosta (played by Karl Robert Lindgren) is watching the late night feast. After Eli finished her late night meal she snaps Jocke’s neck in case he comes back as an undead. Cut to the outside window of the apartment where there are noises from Eli’s place. Most likely Hakan is upset of what she done; Oskar is hugging to the wall of his room trying to listen. Soon after Hakan heads out of the apartment most likely off to get the body. Gosta head to the café and tells Lacke and friends about Jocke; he then takes them to where it happened but the body is long gone. Lacke finds some blood underneath the snow where it happened. Hakan drags the body to a small lake and quickly dumps it there. The next morning Oskar finds his Rubik’s Cube with all sides completed; which he meets her again later after school. He asked how old is she and Eli answered 12…“more or less”. Apparently Eli doesn’t remember her own birthday; Oskar gives her his Rubik’s Cube as a birthday gift but she kindly declines. He asked Eli how she solved and she shows him how it’s done.


Cut to the next school day, Oskar stays in school to write down some Morse code for Eli. Afterwards Oskar leaves the school heading home until he’s confronted by Conny. Conny asked what was Oskar writing but he avoids the question; Conny demands Oskar to show it to him but he refuses. One of Conny’s crew retrains Oskar while another has a switch (a beating stick) and starts beating Oskar in the leg. The first kid takes the switch and swings it across Oskar’s face; leaving a cut on his left cheek. The bullies immediately leave as Oskar stands there; upon returning home Oskar lies to his mom that he fell on a rock. Later Oskar gives the Morse code to Eli; she asked what happened to his face and he only answers “some classmates”. Eli tells him to hit back, hit back hard and they’ll stop and to hit even harder since there’s three of them. Oskar worries that they won’t stop but Eli says that she’ll help him as she touches his hand. While this is going on Hakan is watching them as the two leave. Eli returns to her room telling Hakan to leave and he hesitantly complies; rather bother that she has taken interest to Oskar. Cut to after gym class Oskar goes to his gym teacher Mr. Avila (played by Cayetano Ruiz) asking if he can join the after school weight lifting program. Mr. Avila tells him to show up at seven. Cut to Oskar and Eli hanging out at a candy store; Oskar offers some candy to Eli but she refused at but then she takes one and pukes shortly after. Eli apologizes and Oskar immediately hugs her; she asked does he like her and Oskar replied yes. Eli then asked “if I wasn’t a girl would you like me anyway”? Oskar replies “I suppose so”. We cut to some scenes where Oskar goes to visit his father; nothing important is going I just thought I bring this up. Back at Eli’s place Hakan is setting up for another blood run; he asked her not to see Oskar. She doesn’t even answer just puts her hand on the side of her face. Face it Hakan, you have been replace and this film takes place in 80s; long before Facebook and Twitter.


Cut to a high school basketball game as Hakan is outside watching them. Later after the game the school is closed and locked down leaving only Hakan about to drain blood from a tied upside down high school boy in the locker room. Two of the boy’s friends are outside waiting for him, getting worried of what’s taken him so long. Hakan is about to cut the boy open but gets spooked by one of his friends knocking on the window. The boy wakes up by knock on the door by his second friend and starts screaming for help. Oh what the hell Hakan, you didn’t even bother to chloroform the kid? God you suck. The two friends go get the janitor and start busting on the door. The risking of being identify Hakan takes a jar full of acid and pours it on his face as the two friends and the janitor enters the locker room. The next day after Oskar’s weight-lifting class, he finds his pants in the locker room toilet. Leaving him with no choice to walk home in the cold in his gym shorts; I can imagine what his legs must be feeling like in the cold. Cut to Eli’s place as she hears a news report about an unidentified man who was arrested and administered to a hospital. She figures that it’s Hakan who got caught by the police. Eli shows up at the hospital telling the desk nurse that she’s looking for her “dad” and that he was brought in by the police. The desk nurse tells her that her “dad” is on the seventh floor in a restricted ward. Eli takes her leave as the desk nurse notice that she’s wearing no shoes; feeling deep sympathy for her. The desk nurse heads outside but doesn’t see Eli, nor doesn’t her scaling up the hospital building. Spider-Vamp, Spider-Vamp! Anyway Eli knocks on the window asking Hakan “may I come in”; Hakan opens the window and without hesitation offers his blood to her. She feeds on him, drains him dry and Hakan falls out the window and dies as he hits the ground.


Later Eli shows up knocking at Oskar’s bedroom window asking can she come in. Oskar invites her in and she steps inside and immediately strips naked; OK I need an adult. Eli enters Oskar’s bed while he’s facing away from her but notices that she’s naked and cold as ice. Oskar asked if she “want to go steady” but Eli asked what he means by that. Oskar confesses that he wants her to his girlfriend but Eli replies that “she’s not a girl” and wants things just the way they are. She then asked does he do anything special when he goes steady and he replies no. So she asked that everything’s the same and Oskar replies yes; Eli accepts that they’ll go steady. That it’ll just be the two of them; they then hold hands as they sleep. I wanna talk more about this scene; yeah Eli just comes into Oskar room and immediately gets in bedroom with him. But at least she asked to enter his room instead of sneaking in like a creepy pervert stalker. Also the scene isn’t all cluttered with annoyingly heavy-handed abstinence metaphors. Eli seems to be way more mature and normal than Edward, the creepo stalker dumbass he is every time he’s around Bella. And one more thing, if you think I’m gonna make a “friend zone” joke because Eli said no to be Oskar’s girlfriend. Then you’re welcomed to kiss my ass. The follow morning Oskar wakes up with Eli gone but she leaves him a letter which sadly there’s no subtitles to read it. Later at a frozen lake Oskar’s school class are out ice skating. Oskar walks in the snow and finds a long plastic stick; Oskar is confronted once again by Conny and crew, threating him to go swim in the frozen lake. But Oskar stands his ground as he says no; Mr. Avila has his eyes on Oskar and the bullies. Conny continues to threaten Oskar as he walks towards him; Oskar still standing his ground until he swings the stick to the left side of Conny’s face making his ear bleed. Mr. Avila hears Conny screaming in pain but is distracted by two small school children. The two children show him something frozen in the ice. A little bit later when the authorities chainsaw through the ice it turns out to be the body of Jocke.


After that incident we cut to Oskar swimming at the gym as Eli is outside watching him. The two head to some place to hang out; Eli congratulates Oskar of what he did earlier. A little bit later Oskar takes his knife and cuts his hand to mix his blood with Eli’s. But Eli is drawn by the blood dripping from Oskar’s hand and immediately dashes to the blood on the floor and licks it up. Oskar stand there in fright as Eli looks at him (with her face all different) telling him to go away. Eli runs away and jumps onto a tree as Oskar still in fright of what he has seen. Later at Gosta’s place Lacke asked him to go tell the police but Gosta is very hesitant to do so. You mean this guy hasn’t report to the cops yet, what a fucking dick. Lacke gets very upset that his friend is now gone; his girlfriend Ginia (played by Ika Nord) tries to comfort him but he immediately pushes her away. Ginia gets upset and storms off; Lacke soon follows. Ginia is walking home as Lacke follows her trying to make it up to her but she keeps walking. Ginia walks up some stairs until she gets jump from above by Eli; Locke hears Ginia screaming and quickly runs up the stairs. He sees Eli feeding on Ginia but he kicks her off; Eli immediately runs away. The following morning Ginia is sleeping in bed until she’s awaken by a tiny sunlight beaming on her finger which starts to burn a little. She goes to the window to open the blinds but she quickly closes them after the sunlight starts hurting her. Ginia goes to the bathroom and takes the bandage off her neck; then she proceeds to sniff the blood on the bandage. Cut to Oskar at his father’s place just spend time with him. Oskar looks at Eli’s letter again this time we see subtitles that reads “I must be gone and live, or stay and die.” “Yours, Eli”. Cut to Ginia sniffing around the area where Jocke was killed and looks up where Gosta lives. Lacke is at Gosta’s place grieving over what happened to Ginia. Ginia shows up but for some reason all of Gosta’s cats are acting rather spooked by her presence. As Lacke goes towards Ginia, all the cats began attacking her; biting and clawing the poor woman until she runs out of the place and falls down the stairs.


Oskar gets back from his father’s and goes to Eli’s place. Inside Oskar asked her straightforward is she a vampire and Eli replied yes. He then asked is she old and Eli answers that she’s been 12 for a long time. The two talk some more until Oskar takes his leave. Cut to Ginia at a hospital as Lacke is planning on selling his Dad’s stamp collection to afford a nice for him and to live. Ginia soon wakes up asking Lacke for help; saying “that kid must have infected her somehow” that she “doesn’t want to live”. A little bit later Lacke is waiting outside her room while a nurse is about to draw blood from Ginia. She tricks the nurse to open the blinds and the nurse complies. Once the blinds are opened Ginia gets a good ray of sunshine and burst into flames; dying instantly. Back at Oskar’s place Eli shows up at the door; Oskar lets her in but she says that he has to invite Eli. Oskar is curious to know what if she comes in without being invite and continues to let her in uninvited. Eli walks in and nothing happens at first until she starts bleeding out as if she’s hemorrhage. Oskar dashes towards her, holding Eli in his arms and says that she can come in stopping the hemorrhage. A little bit later after Eli takes shower, Oskar offers some of his mom’s clothes to her. Oskar’s mom is at the door and Eli speeds out of the room and climbs to her place. The next morning Lacke is walking outside the apartment complex, looking at Eli’s bedroom window; thinking that it could be her. Oskar, who spends the night at Eli’s place, wakes up with a message next to him which reads Eli is sleeping in the bathroom and not to come in.


A little bit later Lacke shows up at the apartment and enters on in; he finds a pocket-knife and searches for Eli. Meanwhile, Oskar is hiding out of sight from Lacke. Lacke finds the bathroom and enters in to find Eli still sleeping. He readies the pocket-knife as Oskar readies his knife to protect Eli. Lacke was about to remove the covers off the window but Oskar shouts at him which wakes up Eli. Lacke is distracted long enough to get jump from behind by Eli; Oskar just shuts the door and walks away as Eli feeds on Lacke. Afterwards Eli appears out of the bathroom and hugs Oskar; she tells him that she has to go away. But before she so Eli gives Oskar a bloody kiss. The movie cuts into a montage of Oskar sadden that Eli is gone; well at least he doesn’t break into a four month comatose withdraw over her. Yeah I say it; Oskar has better character growth than Bella Swan. Anyway after that Oskar gets a call from a classmate Martin (played by Mikael Erhardsson), asking if he’s coming to Mr. Avila’s class tonight. Oskar replied yes; however, Martin turns out to be with the bullies setting up Oskar. Cut to nighttime at a bath house Oskar is taking swimming P.E.; meanwhile, Conny and his cronies set fire to dumpster which lures Mr. Avila away from Oskar. Oskar confronted by Conny’s older brother Jimmy (played by Rasmus Luthander) who wants to play a game. Jimmy tells Oskar to hold his breath underwater for three minutes; if he doesn’t make it then Jimmy will cut an eye out. “An eye for an ear” as he puts it. Jimmy takes Oskar’s head, counts backwards from five as Oskar takes a deep breath and dips his head underwater. One bully goes to sit at the benches while Conny and Martin are having second thoughts but Jimmy continues. Underwater Oskar starts losing breath until we hear a loud thud; all of a sudden we see Martin’s leg being dragged around the pool. Then we see Martin’s head fall into the pool; Jimmy’s arm is cut off and falls into the pool. Soon after we see an arm coming into the pool and pulls Oskar on out. Oskar slowly opens his eyes only for us to look upon the eyes of Eli as the two of them exchanged smiles. We cut to see three of the bullies dead while one is still sitting at the bench now crying in fear. The movie ends with Oskar on a train with Eli hiding from the sun in a large box as they talk to each other via Morse code.

My Final Verdict: Unlike Twilight this film has character interactions that aren’t so superficially stagnant and repetitive. Oskar and Eli don’t behave like instant lovey dovey couple on a whim; they behave how two people usually behave, LIKE REAL PEOPLE. We see what kind of character Eli is; how she relies on Hakan to get blood so that she doesn’t have to kill. But was left with no choice but to kill to feed after Hakan died; she does so in order to survive. Like Eli said she kills because she has to; it’s a better character arc instead of listening to her brooding away her life story. I love how this film established actually consequences to Eli (since she’s a vampire) upon setting up the rules. Whereas Twilight constantly avoids any kind of consequences just to keep it all safe (and boring). There’s an Americanize version of this film called Let Me In, which honestly it’s a good Americanization of the Swedish film. So yeah I recommend watching both versions.

Now before I sign off I want to say by the rest of this year and beyond my productivity on this site will be reduced a little due to getting my life situation back in order. Nothing seriously hopefully I just need to set things back on track; don’t worry I’ll still be writing reviews. Just not as frequently as I was for the past three years.

So once again another Halloween has come, more films have been reviewed and Twilight ain’t got shit on them. Looking forward to next year and as always have a safe and fun Halloween; see you later.