LET THE RIGHT ONE IN
3 out of 5 stars

umm... this is the swedish version of twilight w/o the whole teen angst and sparkling vampires. i found this one after following some research on a book that was recommended to me on amazon. turns out it could have been better since it left out some key details that could have made it interesting... :(



the plot is very simple: shy/lonely 12 year old oskar meets a strange girl named eli at the playground, only at night. she smells funny, and her tummy is always growling... well, lo and behold: she's a vampire child. she really grows on him by becoming his friend/giving him advice on dealing with bullies, doing puzzles with him and even exploring their little suburban swedish town together. it's not coincidental that their little town is experiencing a string of weird murders, but it's not eli. you find out that her "caretaker" is the one committing the murders, so he could keep eli alive and well. it's only a matter of time where oskar, keeping a scrapbook of every news item in his town, figures out what eli is, and what she is truly capable of... 

following the subtitles on this one was half the chore, but i couldn't stop giggling due to the fact that hearing swedish always sounds a bit funny to my ear. (is it just me or does it sound sorta russian? even a bit of english? and def german?) i know... i should be mature about this because the movie is quite dramatic. there are a lot of gross moments too, and it's really hard to believe that a small child could be capable of so much death... eli is no sweet girl. i found the screenplay and dialogue to be really DULL, and this could have been done better due to the fact that the book is quite interesting in terms of character development and plot. this one's a real snoozer for those who don't like foreign films, but the music is really fitting. redemption points in my POV! (thus the extra star) ALSO: the plot is also very innocent. i think this story is simple/plain to show that even though eli is a vampire, their "love" for each other is very pure. (they communicate through morse code and oskar finds himself a misfit just like eli) also, even though eli has lived for 200 some years, she's still just a child. (she never got a chance to grow up)

p.s. i read on wikipedia that the british are going to take a stab @ this in their own remake. this time in new mexico! i'm really hoping it'll be better... the sweds really lost me on their version... :/