Let the Right One In (film)

The characteristic subway station of Blackeberg, which features in the film

The film project started in late 2004 when John Nordling, a producer at the production company EFTI, contacted Ajvide Lindqvist's publisher Ordfront to acquire the rights for a film adaptation of his novel, Let the Right One In: "At Ordfront they just laughed when I called, I was like the 48th they put on the list. But I called John Ajvide Lindqvist and it turned out we had the same idea of what kind of film we should make. It wasn't about money, but about the right constellation".[5] A friend introduced Tomas Alfredson to the novel.[6] While he normally does not like to receive books, because "it's a private thing to choose what to read", he decided after a few weeks to read it.[7] The depiction of bullying in the novel affected Alfredson deeply. "It's very hard and very down-to-earth, unsentimental (...) I had some period when I grew up when I had hard times in school (...) So it really shook me", he told the Los Angeles Times.[8] Ajvide Lindqvist already knew Alfredson's previous work,[7] and he and Alfredson discovered that they "understood each other very well".[6]

In addition to EFTI, co-producers included Sveriges Television and the regional production-centre Filmpool Nord. The production involved a total budget of around 29 million SEK, including support from the Swedish Film Institute, Nordisk Film & TV Fond, WAG, and Canal+.[9][10]

Lindqvist had insisted on writing the screenplay himself. Alfredson, who had no familiarity with the vampire and horror genres,[11] initially expressed skepticism at having the original author do the adaptation, but found the end result very satisfying.[7] Many of the minor characters and events from the book were removed, and focus directed primarily on the love story between the two leads.[12][13][14] In particular, many aspects of the character Håkan, including him being a paedophile, were toned down, and his relationship with Eli was mostly left open to interpretation. Alfredson felt that the film could not deal with such a serious theme as pedophilia in a satisfying manner, and that this element would detract from the story of the children and their relationship.[14] Still, the film provided a few hints, of which Alfredson mentions one in the director's comments (Håkan likes children, for the wrong reasons).

A key passage in the novel details what happens when a vampire enters a room uninvited, an action that traditional vampire lore usually prohibits.[15] Alfredson originally wanted to omit this from the film, but Ajvide Lindqvist was adamant that it had to be included.[14] Alfredson was initially nervous about the scene. He realized in post-production that the sound effects and music made it "American, in a bad way", and had to be removed for the scene to work.[16] The end result, which shows Eli slowly beginning to bleed from her eyes, ears, and pores, received positive notices from many critics.[17][18][19] Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian described it as a "haemophilia of rejection".[15]

The novel presents Eli as an androgynous boy, castrated centuries before by a sadistic vampire nobleman. The film handles the issue of Eli's gender more ambiguously: a brief scene in which Eli changes into a dress offers a glimpse of a suggestive scar but no explicit elaboration.[14] When Oskar asks Eli to become his girlfriend, Eli tries to tell Oskar "I'm not a girl". An actress plays Eli's character, but her voice was considered to be too high pitched, so it was dubbed by voice actress Elif Ceylan. According to an interview with the director, as the film was originally conceived, flashbacks explained this aspect in more detail, but these scenes were eventually cut.[20] In the end, Ajvide Lindqvist was satisfied with the adaptation. When Alfredson showed him eight minutes of footage for the first time, he "started to cry because it was so damn beautiful".[21] He subsequently described the film as a "masterpiece".[21] "It doesn't really matter that [Alfredson] didn't want to do it the way I wanted it in every respect. He could obviously never do that. The film is his creative process", he said.[14]

Casting of the lead actors took almost a year,[22][23] with open castings held all over Sweden. Kåre Hedebrant, selected to audition for the role as Oskar after an initial screening at his school, eventually landed the role.[24] Lina Leandersson responded to an online advertisement seeking a 12-year-old boy or girl "good at running".[25] After three more auditions, she was selected to play Eli.[24]

Alfredson has described the casting process as the most difficult part of making the film.[22] He had particular concerns about the interaction between the two leads,[8] and the fact that those who had read the book would have a preconceived notion of how the characters were supposed to look.[26] He wanted the actors to look innocent, and be able to interact in front of the camera. They were supposed to be "mirror images of each other. She is everything he isn't. Dark, strong, brave, and a girl. (...) Like two sides of the same coin."[14] On another occasion, Alfredson stated that "[c]asting is 70 percent of the job; it's not about picking the right people to make the roles. It is about creating chords, how a B and A minor interact together, and are played together."[13] In the end, Alfredson expressed satisfaction with the result, and has frequently lauded Hedebrant and Leandersson for being "extremely intelligent",[23] "incredibly wise",[26] and "unprecedentedly fantastic."[23]

The absence of ceilings made various overhead lighting techniques possible.

Although the film takes place in Blackeberg, a suburb of Stockholm, principal photography took place in Luleå (in the north of Sweden) to ensure enough snow and cold weather. The area where the filming took place dated from around the same time as Blackeberg, and has similar architecture.[12] However, Alfredson shot a few scenes in the Blackeberg area. In particular, the scene where Eli leaps down on Virginia from a tree, was shot in the town square of Blackeberg.[16] Another scene, where Eli attacks Jocke in an underpass, was shot in the nearby suburb of Råcksta.[12] The original Blackeberg underpass that Lindqvist had envisioned was deemed too high to fit in the picture.[16] Some of the outdoor close-up scenes were made in a super cold studio.[27] The jungle gym where much of the interaction between Oskar and Eli takes place was constructed specifically for the film.[20] Its design was intended to suit the CinemaScope format[20] better than a regular jungle gym, which would typically have to be cropped height-wise.[16]

Most of the filming used a single, fixed, Arri 535B camera, with almost no handheld usage, and few cuts. Tracking shots relied on a track-mounted dolly, rather than Steadicam, to create calm, predictable camera movement.[28] The crew paid special attention to lighting. Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema and director Alfredson invented a technique they called "spray light". In an interview, van Hoytema describes it as follows: "If you could capture dull electrical light in a can and spray it like hairspray across Eli’s apartment, it would have the same result as what we created". For the emotional scenes between Oskar and Eli, van Hoytema consistently diffused the lighting.[28]

The film contains around fifty shots with computer-generated imagery. Alfredson wanted to make them very subtle and almost unnoticeable.[20] The sequence where multiple cats attack Virginia, one of the most complicated scenes to film, required several weeks of drafting and planning. The crew used a combination of real cats, stuffed cats and computer-generated imagery.[16]

The film features analogue sound-effects exclusively throughout.[23] The lead sound-designer Per Sundström explained: "The key to good sound effects is working with natural and real sounds.(...) These analogue sounds can be digitally reworked as much as necessary, but the origin has to be natural".[29] Sundström designed the soundscape to come as close to the actors as possible, with audible heartbeats, breathing, and swallowing. Late in production it was also decided to overdub actress Lina Leandersson's voice with a less feminine one, to underline the backstory.[30] "She's 200 years old, not twelve. We needed that incongruity. Besides, it makes her menacing", Sundström said.[29] Both men and women up to the age of forty auditioned for the role. After a vote, the film team ended up selecting Elif Ceylan, who provides all of Eli's spoken dialogue.[31] Footage of Ceylan eating melon or sausage was combined with various animal noises to emulate the sound of Eli biting into her victims and drinking their blood.[23][29] The sound crew won a Guldbagge Award for Best Achievement from the Swedish Film Institute, for the "nightmarishly great sound" in the film.[32]

Swedish composer Johan Söderqvist wrote the score. Alfredson instructed him to write something that sounded hopeful and romantic, in contrast to the events that take place in the film.[14] Söderqvist has described the outcome as consisting of both darkness and light, and emphasized melody and harmony as the most important qualities of the music.[33] The Slovak National Symphony Orchestra performed the score; two years earlier they had performed the score for the first Swedish vampire movie, Frostbiten.[34] On 11 November 2008, MovieScore Media released the film soundtrack in a limited edition of 500 copies.[33] It contains 21 of Söderqvist's original scores from the film.[33] It placed fourth on Ain't It Cool News' Top 10 Best Scores Of 2008 List, being described as "scrupulously weaving together strains of bone-chillingly cold horror with the encompassing warmth of newly acquired love".[34] If magazine described the score as "the most beautifully emotional score yet to grace the undead. It’s a feeling of tender melancholy that delivers its scares in a subtle, chamber orchestra way".[35]

The song "Kvar i min bil", written and performed by Per Gessle, resonates repeatedly through the film. Originally an outtake from Gessle's solo album En händig man, the song was specially provided for the film, to resemble the sound of popular 1980s pop group Gyllene Tider.[36] Gessle has described the song as a "bluesy tune with a nice guitar hook".[37] Other songs in the film include "Försonade" from 1968, written and performed by future ABBA member Agnetha Fältskog,[16] "Flash in the Night" from 1981, written by Tim Norell and Björn Håkansson and performed by Secret Service,[16] and "Dags å välja sida" by Peps Blodsband.

Let the Right One In received widespread critical acclaim. The film has a 98% "Certified fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes based on 193 reviews, with an average rating of 8.3/10. The critical consensus reads, "Let the Right One In reinvigorates the seemingly tired vampire genre by effectively mixing scares with intelligent storytelling".[52] Additionally, Metacritic has reported an average score of 82 out of 100 based on 30 reviews which indicates "universal acclaim".[53]

Roger Ebert called the film "The best modern vampire movie".[54]

Swedish critics generally expressed positive reactions to the film. In 26 reviews listed at the Swedish-language review site Kritiker.se it achieved an average rating of 4.1 out of 5.[55] Svenska Dagbladet gave the film a rating of 5 out of 6 and hailed Alfredson for his ability to "tell [stories] through pictures instead of words about a society where hearts are turned to icicles and everyone is left on their own, but also about love warm and red like blood on white melting snow".[56] Göran Everdahl for SVT's Gomorron Sverige gave the film 4 out of 5 and described the film as "kitchen sink fantasy" that "gives the vampire story back something it has been missing for a long time: the ability to really frighten us".[57] Expressen and Göteborgs-Posten were less impressed and gave the film 3 out of 5. Expressen criticized it for being unappealing to those uninitiated in vampire films while Göteborgs-Posten believed the supporting characters had lost the emotional depth that made the novel so successful.[58][59]

Reviewers have commented on the beautiful cinematography and its quiet, restrained approach to the sometimes bloody and violent subject matter.[60] KJ Doughton of Film Threat thought the visuals in the ending were fresh and inventive and would be talked about for years to come.[61] Roger Ebert gave the film 3.5 out of 4 stars, calling it a vampire movie that takes vampires seriously, drawing comparisons to Nosferatu and to Nosferatu the Vampyre. He described it as a story of "two lonely and desperate kids capable of performing dark deeds without apparent emotion", and praised the actors for "powerful" performances in "draining" roles.[62] Ebert later called the film "The best modern vampire movie".[54] One negative review came from Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly, who gave the movie a "C", characterizing it as a "Swedish head-scratcher", with "a few creepy images but very little holding them together".[63]

Bloody Disgusting ranked the film first in their list of the 'Top 20 Horror Films of the Decade', with the article saying "It’s rare enough for a horror film to be good; even rarer are those that function as genuine works of art. Let the Right One In is one of those films – an austerely beautiful creation that reveals itself slowly, like the best works of art do."[64] The film was ranked #15 in Empire's 2010 list of "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema". In their rationale, the authors noted that, "in these days where every second movie seems to feature vampires, it takes a very special twist on the legend to surprise us – but this one knocked us out and then bit us in the jugular", and found that the "strange central friendship" between the two lead characters was what made the film "so frightening, and so magnetic".[65] In the early 2010s, Time Out conducted a poll with several authors, directors, actors and critics who have worked within the horror genre to vote for their top horror films; Let the Right One In placed at number 28 on their top 100 list.[66] The film was later voted the 94th greatest film since 2000 in an international critics' poll conducted by BBC.[67]

Alfredson received many awards and nominations for his work on the film.

Alfredson won the Gothenburg Film Festival's Nordic Film Prize as director of Let the Right One In on the grounds that he "succeeds to transform a vampire movie to a truly original, touching, amusing and heart-warming story about friendship and marginalisation".[39] Let the Right One In was nominated in five categories for the Swedish Film Institute's 2008 Guldbagge Award, eventually winning for best directing, screenplay and cinematography as well as a Best Achievement-award to production designer Eva Norén.[68] In awarding the film the "Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature", the top award at the Tribeca Film Festival, the jury described the film as a "mesmerizing exploration of loneliness and alienation through masterful reexamination of the vampire myth".[40] The film also won the Méliès d'Argent (Silver Méliès) at the Swiss Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival[43] (NIFFF) and went on to win the Méliès d'Or (Golden Méliès) for the "Best European Fantastic Feature Film", awarded by the European Fantastic Film Festivals Federation of which NIFFF is a part.[69] Other awards include the first Rotten Tomatoes Critical Consensus Award at the Edinburgh Film Festival.[42]

Despite being an internationally successful film, Let the Right One In was not submitted by Sweden for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The details surrounding the film's eligibility for the award resulted in some confusion.[70] Being released on 24 October 2008, the film would normally be eligible for submission for the 82nd Academy Awards. However, the producers decided to release it on 24 September as a seven-day limited run only in Luleå. This would be exactly enough to meet the criteria for the 81st Academy Awards instead.[70] When the Swedish Film Institute on 16 September announced that Jan Troell's Everlasting Moments had been selected instead of Let the Right One In, the Luleå screenings were cancelled. Despite the fact that the film was released within the eligibility period for the 82nd Academy Awards, it wasn't among the films considered because the Swedish Film Institute doesn't allow a film to be considered twice.[70]