Saturday October 24
Let the Right One In

Sweden 2008               114 minutes                15 certificate
Directed by Tomas Alfredsson

Starring Kare Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson, Henrik Dahl Karin Bergquist

Based on a novel which takes its title from a Morrissey lyric, Tomas Alfredson's 80s-set chiller is a rare concoction: a haunting vampire movie that is also an intelligent portrait of tender adolescent love.

Living with his divorced mum in a bland Stockholm suburb, 12 year old Oskar is a pale androgynous loner taunted by local bullies. He dreams that one day he will be strong enough to confront his enemies. One evening he meets Eli, an other-worldly, beguiling girl who needs no coat in the Swedish mid-winter, and who is also 12, but has been 12 "for a long time". Eli’s windows are covered up, and she only comes out at night. She teaches Oskar to confront his fears and attack those who attack him. Eli is a vampire, her father the one who roams the white streets each night to secure an ongoing supply of fresh human blood in scenes that are at once spine chilling and mordantly comic.

The critics have struggled to lavish sufficient praise, describing it as a film to make you swoon with sadness and sigh with happiness, a vampire movie of substance but principally a beautiful and melancholy love story that isolates the yearning and poignancy of adolescence. A perfect choice for not-quite Halloween.

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