It's not often that I manage to whip through a 500 page novel in 2 sittings, but that's precisely what I did manage on the weekend with John Ajvide Lindqvist's novel of contemporary vampirism in Sweden, "Let The Right One In".
This is not, in any sense of the word, a "typical" vampire story, and potential readers may well be put off by the novel's by-line, "A Vampire Love Story" which may indicate the book to be some sort of ghastly cod-gothic Anne Rice rubbish. Nothing could be farther from the truth ...
... Set in 1981, it is the tale of Oskar, a much put-upon incontinent 13 year old boy, bullied, tortured and alienated at school, who, when he finds the chance, is taken to working out his pent-up frustrations and anger by stabbing trees in a nearby forest with a knife, all the while imagining the trees to be his much-loathed tormenters. Living alone with his mother in a drab and characterless housing estate in the Stockholm suburb of Blackeberg, the closest he has to a friend is 16 year old petty thief Tommy, who spends much of his time avoiding his own mother's new boyfriend (a devoutly religious, faintly ridiculous and potentially violent cop) by retreating to the apartment block basement to sniff glue and petrol and flip through porn magazines ...
... And then, Oskar meets Eli who, with her father, has just moved in to the apartment next door. Eli is a rake thin 10 or 12 year old girl who speaks in a voice and with a knowledge that sits rather uncomfortably with her apparent youth. She also smells quite strange and her appearance on any given night can range from the disheveled and sickly to the ethereal ...
... This is a bleak and chilly novel indeed, and it would be bordering on the nihilistic were it not for the tender and sensitive rendering of the awkward relationship that blooms between Oskar and Eli, that relationship being the sole thing that infuses the book with warmth, hope and the promise of redemption. Despite what we know about Eli, what we come to know and what we know will keep on coming, we, as readers, can wish her no ill ...
... And much of this may be due to the fact that, with little exception, the adults in this book are thoroughly fucked up, miserable individuals who spend most of their lives in an alcoholic fog of cynical self-absorption and emotional denial. There are no happy family folk to be found lurking within these dark pages, that’s for damn sure ...
... (And with its disturbing undercurrents of pedophilia and teenage sexuality, it’s a wonder that Australia’s self-anointed guardian of the public moral and protector-general of “our children”, Hetty Johnston, has not scattered her hysterically feverish minions throughout the land to rip the book from the shelves, yet, happily, she remains oblivious to its existence, preferring to lurk and lurch about in fucking art galleries for now) ...
... There are some excellent set-pieces in the book, moments of vividly described grand and grotesque guignol, a few of which may strain credibility, but for the most part, they work and work well (the flatful of cats scene is a hair-raiser), and the book concludes precisely as we would wish it.
That it has now been made into a feature film comes as no surprise, and, though the movie has yet to go into widespread commercial distribution, its inclusion in a number of film festivals (including the current Sydney Film Festival) has already garnered it much praise ...
Marlow Stern from Film Review Manhattan Movie Magazine
"With its deft mix of horror and a heartwarming love story, it comes as no surprise that the movie won the big prize – The Founder Award for Best Narrative Feature – at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival."
Scott Weinberg from Cinematical
“Suffice to say that Let the Right One In is a pretty unique beast, and it's a flick that would NEVER arrive via the Hollywood studio system, seeing as how it deals with hardcore gore, pre-teen sexuality, and some rather nasty kid-on-kid violence. And yet, for a movie that has a lot of dicey components, it sure comes off as a really sweet story. That's not just good filmmaking; that's real intelligence behind the camera.”
... An American remake or adaptation is currently slated, and, as is always the way with such things, I expect they’ll thoroughly fuck it up. Let’s hope we get the opportunity to view the original (unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be a subtitled trailer available yet, so we shall have to make do with the Swedish version for now) ...
From 2008, “Let The Right One In” Trailer
This is not, in any sense of the word, a "typical" vampire story, and potential readers may well be put off by the novel's by-line, "A Vampire Love Story" which may indicate the book to be some sort of ghastly cod-gothic Anne Rice rubbish. Nothing could be farther from the truth ...
... Set in 1981, it is the tale of Oskar, a much put-upon incontinent 13 year old boy, bullied, tortured and alienated at school, who, when he finds the chance, is taken to working out his pent-up frustrations and anger by stabbing trees in a nearby forest with a knife, all the while imagining the trees to be his much-loathed tormenters. Living alone with his mother in a drab and characterless housing estate in the Stockholm suburb of Blackeberg, the closest he has to a friend is 16 year old petty thief Tommy, who spends much of his time avoiding his own mother's new boyfriend (a devoutly religious, faintly ridiculous and potentially violent cop) by retreating to the apartment block basement to sniff glue and petrol and flip through porn magazines ...
... And then, Oskar meets Eli who, with her father, has just moved in to the apartment next door. Eli is a rake thin 10 or 12 year old girl who speaks in a voice and with a knowledge that sits rather uncomfortably with her apparent youth. She also smells quite strange and her appearance on any given night can range from the disheveled and sickly to the ethereal ...
... This is a bleak and chilly novel indeed, and it would be bordering on the nihilistic were it not for the tender and sensitive rendering of the awkward relationship that blooms between Oskar and Eli, that relationship being the sole thing that infuses the book with warmth, hope and the promise of redemption. Despite what we know about Eli, what we come to know and what we know will keep on coming, we, as readers, can wish her no ill ...
... And much of this may be due to the fact that, with little exception, the adults in this book are thoroughly fucked up, miserable individuals who spend most of their lives in an alcoholic fog of cynical self-absorption and emotional denial. There are no happy family folk to be found lurking within these dark pages, that’s for damn sure ...
... (And with its disturbing undercurrents of pedophilia and teenage sexuality, it’s a wonder that Australia’s self-anointed guardian of the public moral and protector-general of “our children”, Hetty Johnston, has not scattered her hysterically feverish minions throughout the land to rip the book from the shelves, yet, happily, she remains oblivious to its existence, preferring to lurk and lurch about in fucking art galleries for now) ...
... There are some excellent set-pieces in the book, moments of vividly described grand and grotesque guignol, a few of which may strain credibility, but for the most part, they work and work well (the flatful of cats scene is a hair-raiser), and the book concludes precisely as we would wish it.
That it has now been made into a feature film comes as no surprise, and, though the movie has yet to go into widespread commercial distribution, its inclusion in a number of film festivals (including the current Sydney Film Festival) has already garnered it much praise ...
Marlow Stern from Film Review Manhattan Movie Magazine
"With its deft mix of horror and a heartwarming love story, it comes as no surprise that the movie won the big prize – The Founder Award for Best Narrative Feature – at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival."
Scott Weinberg from Cinematical
“Suffice to say that Let the Right One In is a pretty unique beast, and it's a flick that would NEVER arrive via the Hollywood studio system, seeing as how it deals with hardcore gore, pre-teen sexuality, and some rather nasty kid-on-kid violence. And yet, for a movie that has a lot of dicey components, it sure comes off as a really sweet story. That's not just good filmmaking; that's real intelligence behind the camera.”
... An American remake or adaptation is currently slated, and, as is always the way with such things, I expect they’ll thoroughly fuck it up. Let’s hope we get the opportunity to view the original (unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be a subtitled trailer available yet, so we shall have to make do with the Swedish version for now) ...
From 2008, “Let The Right One In” Trailer
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