Let The Right One In

Watched Let The Right One In yesterday afternoon. Frankly, I can't think of a better way to celebrate Good Friday than watch a freaky teenage vampire take out Swedes in a nondescript, icy suburban cityscape. 

It is a great film, and well worth a couple of hours of your life. It manages to be touching, beautiful and creepy all at the same time. It even manages to throw in some moments of slapstick humour (Cat Attack!!), although I wasn't quite sure whether these were intended or not. And as the film ended, I was unsure of whether it was about young love, or something far more sinister on the part of the vampire. But then again, that ambiguity probably was intended.

Go see it. Of course, it is in Swedish, but there are subtitles. If you can't be bothered to read subtitles, then wait for the English language remake. But since that will come at the hands of the director of the largely unwatchable Cloverfield, I'd advise seeing the original first. Otherwise you may just end up wondering what all the fuss was about, once everything interesting about the film has been stripped from it and it has been transported to a small US town, like just about every other horror movie you have ever seen.

And the English language version inevitably as caused some controversy, as the BBC reports. The reality is, of course, these films will be remade, because otherwise some of the potential audience will be missed out, and as a result potential revenue will be missed as well. As the editor of TotalFilm points out:

"I think what it boils down to is that the Hollywood studios are aware that many Americans, particularly around Middle America, just won't go and see a subtitled film, so it's a harsh economic reality."

It isn't just Middle America; it will be Middle England too. And it does come down to a matter of individual choice, but I also think that the more something is remade, the more the law of diminishing returns comes into effect.

Let The Right One In is definitely worth seeing; I'd personally make the effort to see it in it's original transition from book to screen.