Let the Right One In (Låt den rätte komma in)

Lina Leandersson is a bloody mess.

(2008) Horror (Magnet) Kare Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson, Per Ragnar, Henrik Dahl, Karin Berqquist, Peter Carlberg, Ika Nord, Mikael Rahm, Karl-Robert Lindgren, Anders T. Peedu, Pale Olofsson, Cayetano Ruiz, Patrick Rydmark, Rasmus Luthander. Directed by Tomas Alfredson

The dark winter sky twinkling with stars above a suburban community covered in a blanket of pristine white snow. The perfect setting for a Christmas tale? In this case, the perfect setting for a vampire story.

Oskar (Hedebrant) lives in a suburb of Stockholm in the early 1980s. His parents are going through a bitter divorce and he is getting bullied at school relentlessly by Conny (Rydmark). He has no friends, no real relationships and is as lonely as a 12-year-old boy can get. His idea of fun is taking a toy knife his father (Dahl) gave him and fantasizing about using it on his tormenters.

That is how Eli (Leandersson) finds him, in the snow-covered courtyard of the apartment complex, playing with his knife. She’s a strange little girl, unnaturally pale, walking barefoot in the snow and seemingly wise well beyond her years. She resists having a friendship with him at first but eventually gives in. She lives with Hakan (Ragnar), a middle-aged man that Oskar assumes is her father and their apartment windows are covered with cardboard. Eli is never around during the day. Spoiler alert (kind of): Eli’s a vampire who has been 12 years old for two centuries, give or take.

When Oskar shows up with a cut on his cheek, Eli prods him to discover what happened and finds out about the bullying. She urges him to stand up for himself and as a result, he signs up for weight training classes after school.

Hakan has murdered a local resident for his blood but fails to deliver the plasma to Eli. She goes out and kills Jocke (Rohm), another apartment resident who was on his way home from a bar and drinks his blood. Hakan drops the body in a nearby lake. Unfortunately, this is the same lake that Oskar’s school takes a field trip to and the body is discovered. It is also the same day Oskar stands up to Conny, beating him with a stick when Conny attempts to bully him.

By now Oskar has discovered that Eli is a vampire and far from being frightened is somewhat curious and actually a little pleased that his new friend is so unusual. Their feelings for each other are getting stronger. However, Hakan has botched another attempt at getting blood for Eli and in order to save her from being traced back to him, he pours acid over his face, severely disfiguring himself. Back at the hospital he offers his own blood for Eli to drink which she does, killing him after which he plunges through the window to his death, giving Eli an effective distraction with which to escape.

Eli attacks Ginny (Nord), the girlfriend of Jocke’s best friend Lacke (Carlberg) but is interrupted by Lacke before she can finish feeding. Ginny begins to transform into a vampire herself. Realizing what’s happening, she asks a hospital attendant to open the blinds. The sunlight streams in and she bursts into flame.

Lacke, having seen who was responsible for Ginny’s attack and putting two and two together, resolves to bring her to justice. Conny’s psychotic brother Jimmy, incensed and embarrassed that a pipsqueak like Oskar had gotten the best of his brother, has a trap in mind. Can the two unlikely friends protect each other?

This is one of the best horror movies of the 21st century, so let’s just start out with that. It is also one of the best vampire movies ever made. It was remade into an Americanized version called Let Me In that was part of last year’s Six Days of Darkness and was a solid film in its own right. However, those who have seen both will tell you that the original Swedish version is amazing.

This is visual poetry folks, with stark Swedish landscapes punctuated by odd splashes of red and orange. Even the interiors have a curiously washed-out look (which is not what Swedish homes and apartments look like). This grim, grey, colorless cinematography is perfect; it is death and it is cold.

This is a movie that rests largely on the skills of its juvenile leads and the two young actors, found after a year-long search, fit the bill. Hedebrant has a weird looking haircut that would instantly mark him as a target for getting picked upon no matter what era he lived in. He shows the socially awkward side of Oskar, as well as the admirable qualities that make him worth rooting for.

Leandersson’s Eli is preternaturally beautiful and has a sexuality that is unusual in a girl so young. In the novel that this is based on, the Eli character is actually a boy who was castrated at the age of 12 shortly before becoming a vampire. Here that distinction is less clear; the filmmakers leave that sexuality ambiguous which to readers of the book is a nice little aside.

I can’t recommend this highly enough for any fans of horror films. The violence and blood probably won’t sit well with the Twilight series fan base but I think the relationship between Eli and Oskar, which the filmmakers wisely focus in on, is what makes this movie so special.

WHY RENT THIS: One of the best horror movies in years not to mention one of the best vampire movies ever. Tremendous performances by the young cast. Visual poetry.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: The scenes of Eli feeding are extremely graphic and might be disturbing; Eli’s sexuality might be off-putting to sensitive souls as well.

FAMILY VALUES: The violence and blood is pretty extreme. There’s also some sexuality and brief nudity as well as some pretty messed-up and disturbing images, not to mention a few bad words here and there.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The title of the movie (and the novel on which it is based) is a reference to the Morrissey song “Let the Right One Slip In.”

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: None listed.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $11.2M on an unreported production budget; I’m thinking this was very successful, box office-wise.

FINAL RATING: 9/10

TOMORROW: Margin Call

A Messy Job

 

           Penelope St. Clair looked right out of place in the sawmill. In her city finery, said to be directly from Paris and the best that the Pacific Northwest could offer in 1898, she was prim, proper and decidedly gentrified. Her father, Andrew St. Clair, had emigrated from Scotland and had amassed a great wealth in land with holdings from Washington State throughout the Rockies as far east as the Dakotas, as far south as Northern California and as far north as British Columbia. Most of his land was full of virgin timber.

            Elliott James McBride, also known as E.J., might have been a handsome man if he could have disguised the avarice in his eyes. He owned a number of lumber mills and his timber had not only built the railroads but also many of the homes and businesses of Seattle, Portland and Vancouver. The arrangement between himself and the daughter of Andrew St. Clair would have been mutually beneficial to both families to say the least.

            Except that Penelope didn’t love E.J. McBride, not in the least. She was reasonably sure he felt nothing for her either, other than being the conduit for further riches for himself. Certainly he wanted her body for his own nefarious purposes; not merely to create an heir for his fortune, but for his own twisted, perverse pleasures which she, as a lady, could scarcely imagine. He proposed time after time; time after time she refused. He entreated her father to make her see reason, but Andrew St. Clair doted on his only child and also refused.

            E.J. McBride was not so easily rebuffed however. He was a self-made man who arrived in the Northwest with a fortune of three dollars exactly. This he had parlayed into the largest single land operation in Big Sky country. There were those who thought that McBride should become governor of the great state of Washington, and there were even those who whispered that he might make a fine President someday.

            He tried flowers. He attempted to give her the most luscious chocolate candy that could be imported from Belgium. He took her out for the finest meals that Seattle could offer. He bought her jewelry, clothing, gifts of every manner. She refused them all. He tried to convince her using every flattery he could think of. She saw it for what it was – the attempt of a desperate man to woo an unwilling woman. She also noticed the way he looked at her, not with the callow affection of a gentleman but with the undisguised lust of a bounder. She would have none of it.

            At last E.J. McBride ran out of patience. He wanted the lumber contract to be sure, but his pride had been hurt. His desire for the timber and for the bride had become obsession and the obsession had turned ugly. One dark night, he had followed Penelope St. Clair down to the park as she went for an evening stroll with a young man she was sweet on, a former Canadian Mountie named Gordon Dudley. E.J., never one to fight fairly, delivered a blow to the cranium of Gordon Dudley with a base-ball bat which knocked the handsome young Seattle police officer out cold. Over the nose and mouth of the screaming Penelope he placed a lace handkerchief literally dosed with ether. Her eyes rolled up in the back of her head and she fainted into the villain’s arms.

            He quickly carried her to his waiting carriage and put her inside, closing the shades on the windows, then quickly had his man drive them out of town before any sort of alarm could be raised. They drove through the night, the horses all a-lather by the time dawn came and they arrived at one of E.J.’s sawmills, one that he’d built in anticipation of the influx of lumber from Andrew St. Clair’s land, but stood in disuse waiting for the lumber to arrive that now never would.

            He trussed her up to a large piece of wood that the circular buzz-saw would normally cut into 2×4 boards. He used smelling salts to wake her. Penelope felt the fuzzy darkness slowly slip away and the morning light filled her eyes. She was disoriented at first but came to wakefulness and soon realized that something was amiss. “What is this? Where am I?” She espied EJ. standing over her, sneering and twirling his handlebar moustache in that strange affectation that was one of the many reasons she despised him. “I demand that you release me at once! Father shall hear about this and he shall give you a sound thrashing when he does!”

            E.J. McBride laughed soundly and heartily. “I fear that this eventuality shall never happen, my dear. You are in a precarious position, one not suitable for making demands.” She struggled mightily but ultimately, futilely against her bonds. “Untie me at once, you cad! Have you no morals?” Again he laughed heartily. “Why, not a speck Miss St. Clair. How do you think I’ve been so successful?” She growled, having no response for that.

            “Now let me explain what your situation is my dear. I find that I must have you – not only for the sake of my business ventures, but because I am attracted to you in no small way. So your choice is a simple one. Either you agree to marry me, be my loyal wife and the mother of my children, making me the sole heir to your father’s land holdings…or nobody gets you at all.”

            She looked at him with the eyes of a she-cat. “I would never marry you Elliott James McBride, not if you asked me a million times!” If she could have stamped her delicate foot, she would have. but E.J. McBride wasn’t concerned about her tantrums. Those he could handle the way a good husband should – with a right cross to the jaw. No, he was more concerned that she would find a way to run away with that policeman…E.J. McBride wouldn’t allow his wife to humiliate him like that, and at this point he looked at Penelope St. Clair as his bride in all but name. When he looked at her, he imagined their wedding night.

            “You might wish to reconsider that,” he said thoughtfully as he walked to the controls of the buzz-saw. “If you choose to deny me what is rightfully mine, I will make sure you become the property of no-one. I will saw you into pieces and scatter them around the Northwest where nobody could find them. Then, I will buy the land outright from your grieving father for pennies on the dollar, particularly when he is accused of your murder.”

            She looked at him with slack-jawed horror. “Have you no shame, sir? Have you no decency whatsoever?” He smiled cheerfully. “None at all,” he said lightly. “I find it impedes the digestion.”  She glared at him. “You mock me, sir!” His expression darkened at that. “I mock you? I…mock…you? It is you, Madame, who mock me! You with your constant and tiresome refusals of my heartfelt proposals, you with your pretense and your arrogance. I may be a self-made man Madame but I assure you that I am, after all that, a man. Now do you wish to marry me or do you wish to die?”

            She regarded him as she would a venomous snake. “I’d rather die than marry a poisonous scoundrel such as yourself.” He shrugged. “Suit yourself,” he said and with a dramatic flourish he turned the saw on.

            The board she was affixed to began to travel by conveyor belt to the saw blade which whirred with mechanical malignancy. Penelope screamed once and turned to her captor. “You wouldn’t dare!” she yelled, more in bravado than in anything else. A slight smile upturned his lips. “I seem to be doing…just that,” he said simply and leaned back against the far wall to watch.

            Penelope began to struggle but at the same time she had faith in the Almighty that he would send someone to rescue someone as virtuous as herself. Perhaps Gordon would come to her aid. Yes, arriving on a shining white steed, his auburn curls glittering in the morning light as he dispatched the bounder E.J. McBride with startling ease. Yes, in mere moments he would be leaping through the door like a gazelle, ready to give Mr. McBride a sound thrashing, one richly deserved.

            She inched closer and smiled smugly. “I’ll be rescued,” she told McBride and he shrugged, smiling. “Perhaps” was all he said and that in a nonchalant tone. She scowled. “My Gordon will come and get me.” E.J. McBride snickered. ‘”I find that highly unlikely,” he said with a malevolent grin. Penelope looked at him with haughty disdain. “Sinners like you always get their comeuppance in the end,” she informed him. He feigned a shocked look and said “Do we? I haven’t so far.”

            He chuckled and Penelope looked nervously at the blade that was now close enough that she could feel the wood chips flying from it, stinging her cheek. “Now enough of this nonsense Mister McBride, stop this at once and release me. You will not profit from this venture.” He laughed heartily. “I already have, my dear. Just seeing you put in your place will be priceless.”

            She began to panic now. The blade was mere inches away and she could feel the blast of warm air from its whirling teeth as she drew closer. “Mister McBride, I must insist you stop this charade at once. I’m getting quite frightened and I want to go home.” He shook his head no. “Too late for that Miss St. Clair. Perhaps you should have taken me seriously to begin with.”

            She could feel the blade cutting strands of her blonde hair and she began to shriek in fear. “STOP THIS! STOP IT! I’LL MARRY YOU, I PROMISE I’LL DO WHATEVER YOU WANT DEAR GOD HELP ME” Her pleas turned into wordless shrieks as the blade made contact with her flesh. Blood from her scalp spattered on the walls as she wriggled in furious waves of fear trying to break free. Given great strength by her fear, she nearly succeeded in pulling her left hand from its bindings but now it was too late. The blade of the saw cut through the bone of her skull and into her brain.

            Bits of grey matter and flesh chunked against the walls of the mill and E.J. McBride felt obliged to move lest his suit get ruined by the gore. Now her screams were guttural and choked with blood as her body twitched and spasmed as her brain began to die and the neural endings were stimulated. Her bowels voided as the screaming stopped, her lovely eyes staring sightlessly as the saw cut through her ocular nerves and the eyeballs plopped to the floor like an overripe piece of fruit.

            The blood really began to gush as the blade sawed through her carotid artery and down along her spine as her body began to fall away, split in two. He watched in fascination as the blade cut through ribs, organs and flesh with ease although he thought with annoyance that the blade would have to be changed after this; the bones were much harder than the soft wood that would be going through here now that he would get St. Clair’s land.

            At last the saw made its way through her pubis and through, cleanly slicing the heiress in half. The show over, he went downstairs and called his man up to finish the gruesome task. The remains of the girl would be sawed into smaller chunks, then thrown in the river where the bears and fish would no doubt dispose of it.

            He looked at the blood-soaked walls of the mill and sighed. Someone would have to clean this mess up before he could bring workers here to work the lumber. Perhaps there were a few Chinamen he could buy who would get the job done. Making money, as with romance, could be messy work.