Celebrate 100 years of vampire films
BOB LEBZELTER / VIDEO VIPER for May 22, 2009
Vampire movies just never seem to go out of style.
Today we have “Twilight” and HBO had a hit with the series “True Blood.”
Would you believe this is the 100th anniversary of the vampire movie? Yes, the first was called “Vampire of the Coast” and was made in 1909.
There have been gory Vampire movies. There have been romantic Vampire movies. There have been erotic Vampire movies. There have been comedies.
If you love vampire movies, check out “Let the Right One In,” which recently was released on DVD and Blu-Ray.
The film was released in October in theaters and there is already talk of a remake. That’s because it was filmed in Sweden and Hollywood finds when a really good foreign film comes out, it can simply make its own version.
But guess what? The Swedish version is pretty decent, from mood and atmosphere to story and actors. Not sure how effective an Americanized version will work and what would be lost.
First, the movie in some ways is void of a time element. It could take anywhere, anytime.
Kåre Hedebrant plays Oskar, who looks pale and frail enough to be the vampire, but isn’t. He is constantly being beaten up by bullies at school. He seems lonely and friendless.
Standing outside in the snow and cold, he meets a strange but nice girl, Eli, played by Lina Leandersson, who instantly strikes up a conversation.
She is drawn to the boy, wanting to make friends, being with a contemporary. She and Oskar are both 12, but she’s been 12 a long, long time. She is a blood-thirsty vampire who has enslaved a middle-aged man to capture her prey so she can drink blood and survive.
But hey, for a girl who hops on victims’ necks and bites down to suck out the blood, with that nice apple-crunching sound for effect, she’s a pretty nice kid.
Now Oskar is a little dense. It takes him a long time to learn his confident, his one real friend, is a compact killing machine. She is often seen with blood dripping down her face, much like we see other 12 year olds with chocolate ice cream on their faces.
For instance, Oskar wants to become blood siblings with the girl, so he cuts a finger and lets it bleed. He gets a hint she is a little different when she leaps to the floor and starts licking up the blood.
In many ways, this is a tale we can all relate to. It is a story of adolescence, about that first awkward love. It just happens to include a background of a blood-crazed vampire and conflict comes because the girl doesn’t want to savagely kill Oskar, drain his blood and drink it.
How sweet.
The switching from adolescent innocence and sweetness to scenes of the macabre make this picture even more terrifying.
Once you’ve worn out or become bored with your DVD of “Twilight,” let this right vampire move into your home. It is a worthy film in this 100th year of nocturnal madness.
LET THE RIGHT ONE IN
• Directed by Tomas Alfredson
• From a novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist, who also wrote the screenplay
• Runtime: 115 minutes
• Rated R for bloody violence, disturbing images and brief nudity
• In Swedish with English subtitles
• 4 stars out of 5.
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