13 Days to Halloween: 'Let the Right One In' is not your typical vampire film
'Let the Right One In' is rather a sweet film, touching on themes of friendship, otherism, and belonging.
For the '13 Days to Halloween' series, I collect, watch, and write about 13 brilliant and spooky 'underseen' movies that more people need to see. Note that I did not use the term 'underrated', as I believe they were just overlooked for various reasons, and not necessarily rated lower than they deserve. The films are ranked worst to best, in my opinion. The series will end on October 31 with the film that I think is the best and scariest little-known horror flick. I have added two bonus films to compensate for the last two days.
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'Let the Right One In'
You have probably seen the Hollywood remake of Swedish feature 'Let the Right One In'. Directed by Matt Reeves, it is called 'Let Me In', and it is quite good, and mostly captures the atmosphere and tone of the Swedish film. But it is still not a patch on Tomas Alfredson's original. The story, based on a novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist, follows a troubled and bullied 12-year-old boy called Oskar Eriksson (Kåre Hedebrant) who befriends and falls in love with a young girl called Eli (Lina Leandersson) who is actually a 200-year old vampire.
Despite the bloody premise and one of the two main characters subsisting solely on human blood, 'Let the Right One In' is rather a sweet film, touching on themes of friendship, otherism, and belonging.
Bonus films:
'The Descent'
If you fear closed spaces, there are few movies scarier than 'The Descent' follows a group of women go spelunking in a cave system which is not explored by any human, at least not any surviving human. After their entrance collapses, they encounter pale, blind, beastly humanoid creatures that look a vaguely humanoid, if humans were not fully evolved. The film is a bloody, thrill ride that never lets up.
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'1408'
Based on a Stephen King story, '1408' features Joan Cusack as an author called Mike Enslin who delves into haunted houses and rents a room called 1408 that is supposed to be out of bounds. Despite the insistent warnings of of Samuel L Jackson's manager Gerald, he stays in that very room, believing himself to be a sceptical buster of myths believed by the masses. And there, he encounters things that change his complete outlook -- if he did come out alive, that is.