my commentary on the LTROI film and novel

My commentary on “let the right one in”

Hello, I’m Godless Vampire, and this is my commentary on the film (And the novel) called “Let the right one in.” In this film (and the novel), it’s about the boy named Oskar who gets bullied. He meets a strange girl who moves in next door to him and is a vampire. I didn’t see the film first, I read the novel first. In the novel, it is rather graphic and disturbing. It contains sexual stuff (Though not a lot), torture done to an underage kid (Thankfully, it’s just one short page), violence, and strong language. In this film however, it only has mild violence and mild language. Yes there is a brief nudity, it lasts only a second or two.

I’m never the type that loves horror films; on the contrary, I despise them. Or at least, I despise most American horror films. I’m much more of a fantasy and sci-fi fan. The reason I don’t like horror is because of gory scenes and pointless wanton slaughter. What I do like however is psychological horror and a film that makes you think and doesn’t just gives you all the answers. This film however is not American, but Swedish. This film has very little gore and plenty of blood. This is fine with me. This is also not a scary film, just creepy in some scenes.

I do like the film, because of the relationship that Eli and Oskar shares together. It’s very sweet, innocent, and their love is pure as can be for 12 year olds. No, there is no sex in it, especially towards underage children. As for the novel, I do like it and I’ve bought the book and the film. I do not think the book was in any way meant to be pointless with some of the horrible scenes, it was meant to show Eli, who is actually a boy, who had gone through a traumatizing experience at the hands of a vampire with the wig. The author did it because he wanted the characters, Oskar and Eli, to be having a pure loving relationship between each other and nothing sexual. As for the ending with the Zombie Hakan, it has to do with showing that Eli had let the wrong one into his life, and that was Hakan. This is the purpose of the title of the book and the film. If you let the right one in, things can be good, let the wrong one in, bad things can happen.

In the beginning of the film, we have Oskar in his bedroom, down to just his underwear, jabbing a knife into the air saying, “Squeal, squeal.” This is because he was called a pig (In the novel, he’s fat, in the film, he’s skinny) and was told to squeal like one by the bullies. He is playing out in a vengeful fantasy where he exacts his revenge on his bully. In the novel, he fantasized stabbing Jonny, who is Conny instead in the film. Why changed the name? I have no idea.

Here, we have Hakan, the creepy old guy, smiling at the little girl sitting next to him in the taxi humming to herself. They reach the apartment next to Oskar, Hakan was to move stuff inside by himself while Eli does whatever she wants to do. People, who first see this film, might get the impression that Hakan is Eli’s father. This is what the director wants them to think. For now.

The officer in the novel was talking about drugs, but in the film, he talks about the death in where a victim did not die of fire.

Hakan in this scene is cleaning out a jug, funnel, knife, and packs a halothane. He is ready to kill someone to get blood for Eli. It’s rather interesting that Hakan often chooses young victims while Eli goes after grownups. It may have to do with Hakan’s unhealthy interest in young people. In the novel, He’s actually a sexual predator who was fired from his school because someone found out about his sickening fascination with children because of the films he is getting in the mail. Gladly this is not shown in the film. The screenwriter, who is the author of the book, wants to tone down the graphic stuff and omit Hakan’s past and what he is. It is rather silly to see that he forgets the jug of blood when he just picked it up a second ago when it fell over because the dog was there.

Oskar goes outside and starts to attack the tree. He does this in a novel as well. Eli is there now and is watching him with mild fascination with his fantasy. Eli walks off, telling him that they can’t be friends. This is understandable because vampires befriending a human may not always end well. But it is not improbable that friendship between them can be successful, considering that they both became such great friends later on.

Hakan suddenly finds out that he forgot the jug of blood, which then we switch to Eli throwing the raincoat against the wall. Hakan is rather afraid, and Eli says he was supposed to help him. Now the audience can figure out that they’re not father and daughter.

The boys calling out to Oskar are the bullies, looking to bully him some more. In the novel, they find him in the bathroom and starts forcing him to squeal. He does that so they would leave him alone. They have it in the deleted scene, but I’m not sure why they didn’t leave it in the film. It is probably due to the time limit of the film. So in the film, he simply walks home. But it is likely that he already had suffered at their hands beforehand.

It’s quite humorous to see Oskar mimicking his mother who is only showing concern about her son’s safety and wellbeing, though I can understand him being tired of her nagging. He takes the newspaper and cuts up the stories about the boy’s death, the one whose blood was drained.

This scene here is when Virginia, Lacke and some of their buddies are in a Chinese restaurant talking about death penalty, Russians and such. Lacke tries to have a conversation with Hakan, but Hakan chooses to leave.

Oskar is sitting on the gym, playing with his Rubik’s cube while Eli shows up. I’ve just bought myself a Rubik’s cube. I guess it’s because I’m interested in it then. Eli and Oskar both say they wanted to be alone, but Eli seems interested in his Rubik’s cube. He gives it to her; she is rather interested in it. When Oskar asks if she smells funny, Eli looks at him like, “So I do? You smell interesting.” When He leaves, Eli’s stomach was growling.

Poor Jocke, such a nice guy who tries to help the poor girl, turns out that the poor girl is Eli who tricked him and drank his blood. She twists his head so that the infection doesn’t spread. Why does she cry is up to us to speculate. But it is also to show that Eli doesn’t enjoy doing this.

Hakan is quite angry that Eli went to feed when she could have risked being seen. Gosta seem to have a lot of cats. I’m a cat person, but I sure wouldn’t want that many cats. But it’s really Hakan’s fault to begin with as he was the one to forget blood. So he drags the body to the water hole and dumps it while Gosta tells Lacke and the others what happened.

So the Rubik’s cube gets solved very well. Eli is quite intelligent when it comes to puzzles. Eli is sleeping in a bathtub. In the novel, she sleeps in a bathtub full of blood. But the author feels that it is conflicting because of some problems such as; where did the blood come from, how come it doesn’t get coagulated? My sister once slept in a tub with blankets and pillows and all. But she never saw this film and it reminded me of her doing this. I don’t know why my sister did this.

Oskar asks Eli how old she is. She replies 12, more or less. She also doesn’t have a family, never celebrates birthdays, and is pretty much alone. Out of pity, Oskar offers the cube. She rejects it, as she doesn’t want pity. She shows Oskar how to solve the Rubik’s cube.

Here, after the teacher tells a story of the Hobbit, Oskar decides to make a copy of Morse code so that he and Eli can communicate through the wall. Conny seem to be rather interested in what Oskar had been writing. He gets whipped in the legs by the short, blonde kid. He’s crying in this scene, but it was never intended. But the director chooses to keep it there. I personally would think the same way and kept it in too. Apparently, the boy who cried was likely to recall his days when he is bullied this way. But that is just my speculation. Martin strikes Oskar in the face, and then the boys ran away.

He lies to his mother and says that he trips over a rock. To Eli, He tells her that a classmate bullies him. She tells him to fight back. After that, Oskar gets Eli to go follow him. In the novel, he takes her to the swing and does a trick. Hakan is watching them from the window and he’s jealous of Oskar. He’s replaceable.

Eli has gotten Hakan to leave the room so he can talk to Oskar through the wall with the morse code. In the novel, Hakan has tempted to send a message to Oskar himself, but chose to copy the code so he can hear what they’re saying. Glad that wasn’t in the film, it’s rather pathetic to see an old man trying to act jealous over a 12 year old.

We have just a typical gym class. In the novel, they tried a pommel horse. Jonny had tried to rope Oskar up and ride on his back. They didn’t include that, so I figure it would be too long in the film. Oskar asks Avila if he can join the strength exercise program. There is no need for a sign up apparently, but I think they should be.

That cat was shown because they have some sort of a negative effect towards vampires. Supposedly because they sense that they’re a danger. In this scene, Oskar and Eli gets candy, Eli tries one because after she refuses one, Oskar was sad. She then throws up behind the wall, He hugs her. This part, she asks if he would like her, if she wasn’t a girl. In the novel, it’s the same thing. In the novel, there is a part where those two made fun of the kiosk owner because he looked like a monkey. I suppose it would be too long or that the atmosphere would not fit with the film.

Here, Oskar takes a visit to see his father, where they have some fun together. In the novel, the visit was just once, before he escapes the place because of his father’s drinking. In this film, it was done with just enjoying time with dad, then another where Janne comes in and gets into drinking with Oskar’s father.

Hakan starts to get ready to get blood again and now he has decided to bring acid. I wonder where he got that from, and I wondered why he didn’t bring it with him before. He feels that he would have to use it. He asks her not to see the boy tonight. She touches his face, as to say, “Ok,” I had the urge to tell him to stick it where the sun doesn’t shine.

Now he watches the boys play basketball, waiting for the time to nab one person to kill. Of course, he didn’t count on his friends to be waiting for his friend he was about to kill. He was done for, now he pours acid on his face. In the novel, it was pretty gross because Hakan was jerking off before he gets one boy to drain blood. I’m very glad they didn’t show that part. It gives me the willies just thinking it, no pun intended.

Eli wasn’t sure if she should try communicating or not to Oskar, but it seems rather silly of her to obey Hakan. He should mind his own business. In the novel, he was promised one night with her, which was even grosser. I’m very glad that part wasn’t in the film. But of course, he never gets that wish in the novel. Ha!

Oskar starts his training, and then finds his pants in a urinal. Not sure if it was done by a bully, but I supposed so. So he walks home in his shorts. Poor kid.

Now Eli hears about Hakan’s arrested and that his face was disfigured. She enters the hospital to find out where he was. She goes outside, climbs up the hospital wall. Hakan seems happy to see her, but also knows it means he must die. In the novel, there was a guard on duty, but now that would just take too long in the film, so they just have Hakan being drained of blood and then falls to his death. In the novel, he becomes a zombie Hakan afterward, but in the film, he just remains dead. I’m glad it turns out that way instead. They left the zombie Hakan out because it’ll make the film too long. Not that I mind long films.

Eli goes into Oskar’s bedroom, which is understandable, and Oskar asks her out. “But Oskar, I’m not a girl.” In the novel, Oskar asks if she was a guy. She says she is nothing. The scene here is rather sweet.

So Oskar finds Eli’s note, “To flee, life, to stay, death, Eli.” It’s also was to say, “I must flee and live, to stay and die, Yours Eli.” Which is from Romeo and Juliet.

Now we have the ice skating scene. Avila was trying to warn the kids about the hole in the ice, but he says, “Holy,” Which I find it quite amusing. Conny wants to try and get Oskar into the water, but Oskar whacks him in the ear with a pole. The pole is the same one Hakan used to push Jocke’s body. Some viewers speculated that it’s a sign that he’ll be like Hakan. But a pole is a pole, people used them before. It means nothing and they’re reading too much into it.

Oskar’s mother is more concerned about how people would view her, rather than to try and understand why Oskar did what he did.

So Martin just teases Oskar, but not in a mean way. But he’s not exactly a friendly person. Eli was dressed up in “normal” clothes so she could not stand out in her thin sweater. She and Oskar both decide to hang out in the basement. Oskar tries to mix blood, Eli starts lapping the blood from the floor that dropped from Oskar’s hand. We see her face changed into an older Eli. In the Novel, it was described as a ghost who flew into her face, revealing a vampire within her. She flees as to not to hurt Oskar, instead, she goes out to feed. Soon, it was Virginia she feeds on.

Lacke here seems to be very mean and cold to Virginia. Of course, he was drunk and didn’t mean what he said to her. But that caused her to leave, and then get attacked by Eli. Eli has the face that says, “What just happened? Here I was, snacking on this woman and then I’m not.”

Here we find Virginia finding out that she cannot go into the sun. In the novel, she tries going to work while trying to shield herself against the sun.

Now we have the second visit with Oskar’s dad. Shortly when playing their game, Janne comes in and they start drinking. Oskar feels completely alone. In the novel, Oskar’s father was more like a werewolf to him. He decides which monster he wants to be with; a werewolf or a vampire. He chooses Eli.

Virginia comes into Gosta’s place so that she can eat him, but the cats have all decided to attack her. It wasn’t to protect Gosta, on the contrary, they were trying to get her to go away or to kill her because she’s not human.

I found this scene to be funny, her thrashing on the hospital cart while screaming as they wheel her away.

Now we get to Oskar meeting Eli at her apartment. She invites him in, but puts the glass door between them. He asks her if she is a vampire, she said yeah. They both go on with Eli having money, but very little stuff is in the apartment. He wants to leave. In the novel, Oskar tries to leave, but Eli stops him. They fought for a bit, but shortly after slapping her across the face, they wrestled each other. There is the deleted scene with the slap, so it was removed from the film.

There’s not much to say here, because Lacke was going to sell his dad’s stamp collection. Virginia just wants to die because she doesn’t want to be a vampire.

Oskar and his mom having a toothbrush dual. Quite amusing.

Now, here’s an interesting part, the doctor was going to take samples of her blood, then let her go home. She asks him to pull up the blinds, She then spontaneously combusts.

Here we have Conny talking to himself before his brother Jimmy comes along to mess with him.

Here, we have Oskar trying to make Eli come inside the apartment uninvited. She does go in, and starts to bleed from every orifice. Oskar invites her in, so now the bleeding stopped. Eli tells him she’s like him, that she needs to kill to live. She says, “Be me a while.”

At that point in the novel, we are given the grisly, graphic scene where Eli, who is revealed to be in fact, a boy, taken by a vampire in the wig, gets castrated, and bitten by the vampire. Revolting and horrible as it is, it explains why Eli is who he says he is. Of course, it’s not in the film. Gladly so, we don’t need a haunting image of it in our head. The director and the Author thought of using a pig, but it might piss off animal rights. But I rather they just don’t do it at all.

Eli gets dressed into his mother’s outfit, but just before she is finished dressing up, Oskar takes a peek, and we see that Eli has no genitals. This is actually a doll, not a child’s real genitals. This was done intentionally in order to tell the audience that something bad has happened to Eli. It doesn’t explain it in the film, but the book explains it pretty graphically. Just so you know, the director wasn’t doing that out of sheer enjoyment of showing children’s genitals.

Lacke is shown at the place where Jocke was killed. He has lost everything; his friend and his lover. He feels the need to kill Eli. He has a good reason to; But Eli has a good reason to live as well. It’s conflicting, but I rather that Eli lives and not Lacke. Consider it a moral dilemma; One wants justice for what was done to those he loves and another wants to live and has to live off on blood.

Oskar is shown to have thrown away his knife. He realize that the attempt to murder is not a good thing and he rejects it. Eli has to leave, which leads to a sad music and everything went silent except for that music. His mother is pretty angry and upset, but Oskar was sad because his friend had to leave. He closes all the doors on his little cars, which is a metaphor for closing everything off from his life because he now lost Eli.

Oskar receives a call from Martin, asking if he would join the swimming. He does go, then Jimmy, Conny, and Andreas shows up. Jimmy threatens Oskar. In the Novel, things were more violent than this. When Eli comes in, Jimmy’s head and arm was severed. Conny and Martin are both dead. In the Novel, Jimmy and Jonny’s head was severed and in the water. At this point, Oskar remerges and sees Eli. They didn’t say anything, but their eyes say all that is needed to be said.

“You came back for me.”

“Yes Oskar, I can’t leave you, I really like you a lot.”

At the train, Oskar and Eli are traveling off. Who knows where, but that is the end of the film. The director says that he thinks this ending is a happy ending, though people can think it is a sad ending if they want. To me, it’s a happy ending as well. Yes I see obstacles in their way, but nevertheless, it’s a happy ending.

What has happened to Eli before Lacke tries to kill him, he met the Zombie Hakan who tried to rape him. He manages to get away, he tries to get T-rod so he can set him on fire. This was done to show that Eli had had allowed Hakan into his life, now he was the wrong one to be let in. I’m glad they didn’t show this part in the film, it’s too revolting.