The original Swedish adaptation, Let The Right One In, was a masterpiece of Vampire-film. Forgoing the cliched history, it focused on the relationship between a lonely boy and a mysterious girl. It was fresh, which made it so good. And then Hollywood decided to “remake it”, because as far as they’re concerned any film with subtitles is akin to a book. Would they destroy what made the original so good? In the words of the books author: I might just be the luckiest writer alive.

The story is fairly simple. Owen is a typical 80s sorrowful child, bullied at school and isolated at home. When a girl and her father move in next door it’s not long before he strikes up a friendship with her, despite her warnings that they can’t. At the same time a series of ritual killings take place in the surrounding town, and the local police begin to suspect the newcomers.

I won’t ruin the rest of the story, but needless to say the ending is still very well done. And that’s probably the best thing about this remake, Hollywood didn’t actually add much. In fact the only thing they did were add some new special effects which ultimately detract from the overall film by breaking the sense of realism.

This is still the same Swedish film, only with a relatively unknown American cast. It works so well I’d recommend newcomers watch this over the Swedish version purely for the lower barrier to entry.

My rating: 85%