Let the Right One In Tomas Alfredson

Critical reception

Let the Right One In has a 98% 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.[53]

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 five out of six, 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 four out of five 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 three out of five.Expressen criticised 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 three-and-a-half out of four, 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]

Awards and nominations

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 canceled. 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]