Savannah’s Weekend Movie

Savannah’s finally well, and she scratched off a movie that broke her heart…

Penguin Queen reporting back from the dead after a nasty virus tried to take me and my family out. So we have our weekly scratch off movie, Valentines edition…but a week late. The deck had only two cards with romance listed as a clue. This one specifically featured:

R-2008-114mins

Romance/Vampire

I’m not gonna lie. At first, I was a little worried this was a joke card and I would end up watching Twilight. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case. Our movie this week is the Swedish film, Let the Right One In. Quick disclaimer, the movie is in Swedish, with subtitles for dialogue. This doesn’t bother me, but I know that’s not for everyone.

Oskar is a twelve-year-old boy, bullied and forgotten. He meets a new girl, Eli, and despite her telling him “we can’t be friends,” the two indeed, become friends. The catch, Eli isn’t JUST twelve. She’s “twelve, more or less.” While we never learn her exact age, it’s obvious Eli isn’t a brand new vampire.

I had a lot of issues with this movie. The pacing was off, moving really slowly with only bits of action. There was a much bigger focus on the love story (between twelve-year-olds!) than any actual plot. I was frequently bored, as not much happened. The ending was sufficiently brutal, but it felt like too little, too late after the slog to get there. I was also put off by the crotch shot of a twelve-year-old girl. It felt gross and completely unnecessary.

My research revealed this film is based on a book that supposedly plays more on the brutal nature of vampires, so I might try to read it at some point. As for the film, I’d skip it. 1/5, I should have just slept.

Amendment: in researching the book, it has come to my attention that in the movies, Eli isn’t actually a girl, but a castrated boy. Apparently I shouldn’t watch movies requiring comprehension while stuck in my own Try Not To Die novel.

Savannah R. Fischer is the permanently exhausted pigeon in charge of two well-loved chaos gremlins. When not with her family, she can usually be found in her cave, wrapped in an oversized blanket and dreaming of spinach puffs. She wants to show her gremlins that they can do hard things, even when it’s scary, like pulling the wrong lever and ending up in a pit of alligators. No llamas were harmed in the making of her works of horror.