The film is set in Stockholm in the early 1980's. The film is of the horror genre and the type of horror would be vampires. The film was directed by Tomas Alfredson and was produced by Carl Molinder and John Nordling. The film stars Kare Hedebrant (Oskar) Lina Leandersson (Eli) and Per Ragnar (Eli's father) and the film was distributed by Sandrew Metronome.
The film Let The Right One In begins with the main character Oskar, hes a young Swedish boy being bullied at school, however he leads a reasonably normal life. Until one night when hes outside stabbing a tree, imagining he's avenging his bullies, when a girl of his age appears behind him, Eli. Although she tells Oskar they cannot be friends, they eventually form a close bond and become good friends.
As the film advances and the friendship grows, it becomes apparent that Eli is not a normal girl however. She doesnt attend school and only appears in the evenings, and she is in fact a vampire. She lives with her father in the flat adjacent to Oskar and then communicate via morse code.
Eli makes her father go out and kill, in order for her to drink the victims blood, however theres one incident when the father is disturbed and cannot successfully collect the blood, leading to Eli killing a drunken man and drinking his blood. At this point in the film the audience realises the Eli is a vampire and the the protagonist, Oskar could potentially be in danger.
The film in a sense follows Todorov's theory which is that in every film there this an equilibrium, which is then disrupted, there is then recognition of this disruption, an attempt to fix the problem and finally a new equilibrium. Let The Right One in follows this theory in my opinion because there is a clear equilibrium at the beginning of the film when everything is calm, where Oskar is going about his every day life as he normally would. Although he is not necessarily happy, there is nothing unusual about his life at the present time. However there is an event which alters this clam, which would be the introduction of Eli into his life. The initial introduction doesnt pose a problem, as if she was a normal girl, there would be no problem with them becoming friends. However the real problem comes from the discovery that Eli is actually a vampire and the danger that this puts the pair in. There is also a stage of recognition in the film where Oskar says "are you a vampire?" and Eli responds "would you like me anyway?" and they decide to "go steady" (become a couple). At this point Oskar is aware that Eli is in fact a vampire but remains friends and tries to help her anyway.
There is also an attempt to fix the event in the film, and in this case it would be when Eli moves away, she knows she is in danger and needs to move away from the situation. There is a mini equilibrium here for a period of time after Eli leaves, however there is an event when Oskar is trapped in the swimming pool with his bullies and they try to make him hold his breath for 3 minutes. At this point there is a commotion above the water when you see the bullies head sink under water, followed by the arm that was holding Oskar under. There are 3 mutilated bodies when the camera shows whats going on above the water when Eli pulls Oskar out, with one more cowering bully sitting on a bench. The final equilibrium being when Oskar and Eli are on the train and Eli is in the box to keep her from the light, Oskar is sending her a message in Morse code. This is the final equilibrium in the movie therefore the film does follow Todorov's structure.
Although Eli is a character who kills and drinks the blood of reasonably innocent people, the audience will side with her and Oskar and automatically want to see them succeed. The end of the film will please them as they now know they are safe and they will be together. Even though you could argue what Eli does is evil, she is still and important character and on who is liked by the audience due to her positive involvement with Oskar.
The film is clearly of the horror genre and this is shown mainly by Eli murdering and sucking the blood from people. This is often quite graphic and gory, however not gory enough to be described as a slasher film. Its not only the way that Eli kills people that makes Let The Right One In a horror film however. There are also the classic horror techniques such as quick clips and shock tactics such as when Eli jumps off the bridge onto the drunken man, the audience wouldnt be expecting this, therefore it would suprise and scare them.
In the sense of the type of horror film this is, vampire, it very much goes against the normal genre. One way it does this is that when you normally think of a vampire, you would think of a tall dark haired male with a cloak and fangs. However in this film the actual vampire is a 12 year old girl, and doesnt actually look evil in the slightest. So in this sense, the film goes against social convention. The film doesnt really fit in with the current films of its time because in 2008 the main theme for horror films were gore films such as SAW or documentary style films such as PARANORMAL ACTIVITY or THE BLARE WITCH PROJECT, and it would be difficult to argue that the fil has moved the horror genre forward as there have been no notable similar vampire films since Let The Right One In was made. It is still a brilliant and very important film however.
The characters in the film dont entirely agree with Vladamir Propp's theory however, as he said there will always be the; villian(s), the hero, the donor, the helper who aids the hero, the princess, her father- who rewards the hero, the dispatcher and the false hero. In this film however it is difficult to identify many of these characters. There are the clear villians, the bullies, however to call Oskar a hero would be a bit over exaggerated in my opinion, I think if there was a hero it would be Eli and Oskar would be her helper. Other than those characters however, its difficult to establish any other certain roles.
There is clear binary opposition in the film, however this seems to be quite reversed. The audience would normally assume the killer in the horror movie would be the evil side. However in this film its the opposite, Eli, who is actually the killer, is seen as a protagonist in the film and that she is on the 'good' side, and those who are trying to stop her are the 'evil' side. So this is binary opposition as there are two clear sides in the movie however the good and evil are actually twisted.
In conclusion, Let The Right One In is a fantastic horror film which includes many elements to analyse. Its been voted as one of the films of the decade, mainly because how it is differentiated from other standard horror. At the time it was very different from the current theme in horror and this is the reason the film stood out so well from other films at the time.
Kieran Browne
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