Wednesday, March 18, 2009

The Best Movie of 2008

And the best vampire movie ever made*:

Let the Right One In


It's Swedish. It has subtitles. It is already being remade in American, for people who can't read so good, probably with Catherine Hardwicke directing a script rewritten by Kevin Williamson, starring Haley Joel Osment and Abigail Breslin.

The original movie is fantastic. It is what every one of the countless vampire movies/series made recently wishes it could be--good. It is what every horror movie made lately wishes it could be--scary without trying too hard.

Instead of quick cuts, depriving the audience of information, surprising them, jolting them out of their seats, Let the Right One In chooses a creepier path--long, lingering, right-there-out-in-front-of-you shots. The violence speaks for itself, its import is allowed to creep into your brain, the characters get developed, humanized.

Instead of your typical bloodthirsty, vengeful villain, Eli is a vampire who hates what she is, what it makes her do; she feels remorse and shame after each thirst is quenched. She wants desperately to be good, to be normal, but knows it is impossible and that her fate is sealed. A girl's gotta eat!**

My favorite aspect of the movie--spoilers ahead--is that although the little vixen ultimately makes the boy her next mortal slave, and a no-doubt-centuries-long tradition continues, it appears as though the future will be brighter for Eli, that she has grown a sense of purpose, maybe even a social conscience.

She will no longer be alone; she will have a friend. No longer will she hunt the innocent, no longer will she force somebody else to kill for her: she will simply unleash this vulnerable boy--as one might send a blind chicken into a den of hungry foxes--into a world full of bullies and feast on his cruel tormentors.

Which is kind of a beautiful thing, when you think about it. The two ultimately form a symbiotic partnership, each benefiting from the other. Hell--they could travel the world as a team, roaming from here to there at will, attracting the local riff-raff and destroying them. And would that be so bad?

Probably good for the gene pool, right?



* The second-best vampire movie ever made.

** A friend recently told me that a friend told her--did I lose you yet?--that things are a bit different in the book, that Eli is a boy who chopped off his dick because he didn't want sexuality getting in the way of his vampirism. Which gives a different meaning to her "I am not a girl" utterance than I initially gathered and sort-of explains the odd full-frontal-genital shot we get of Eli in the movie, but actually just confuses things a whole helluva lot...

_

6 comments:

Unknown said...

DIS-A-GREEEEE.

HOW can you say this THE SAME YEAR TWILIGHT CAME OUT? HAVE YOU READ THE BOOKS? THEY'RE *AMAZING*!!! (best books of the century EXCEPT for Harry Potter....he's SOOOOOOO HOTTTT.) And that guy with the curly hair is SOOOO HOTTTT. I wonder if he has an S.O.....? Or what his name is? Ruben Patterson?

I mean, you must be TOTALLY DUMB. Twilight was soooo popular, no one's even heard of this. I feel sorry for you.

Goodtime Charlie said...

Babysit me!

Dukes My Boy said...

Can't wait for Hollywood to "F" this one up...

Paz said...

I really wanted to see this movie. It's a shame I'm lazy and broke.

Also, why did I only hear about Twilight while Christmas shopping for you guys at a Borders? It's huge, right? Where was I hiding? If I remember correctly, the poster was of a dude that looked like an air-brushed, asshole about to faint...or fart.

I can't believe people like that shit (although I can't say I'm on a high horse because I read it or saw the movie or anything).

ps: what's an S.O.?

Goodtime Charlie said...

Significant other?

Not sure...maybe Ms. Karl can fill us in...

And you can rent "Let the Right One In," by the way. Pretty convenient and cheap. DO IT!

Anonymous said...

I'm going to start a "help Matt and I get NetFlix fund"



thanks for the S.O. clarification. I also had to be explained recently what I.M.H.O. was...not that I'm bragging like some anarchist that lives in a hole, but ya know what I mean.

p.s. that was NOT a jab at my S.O.