I consider this film about a young boy who forms a friendship with centuries-old vampire who looks like a 12-year-old girl to be maybe one of the top 10 horror movies ever. This is one of those films like The Exorcist, The Omen, or The Shining where a talented director took on supernatural material, and made, not just a great horror movie, but a great movie, along the way telling a brand new story about familiar monsters without relying on cliche. (It may also be that three of the four movies mentioned were based on acclaimed novels.)
It was originally recommended that I watch this with the original swedish soundtrack and English subtitles, and not use the terrible English audio overdubbing job, and though I don’t like subtitled movies in this case it proved to be good advice.
Two years later the novel was remade for American audience and titled “Let Me In”, starring Chloe Grace Moretz, and it might be one of the few times her presence has ever made a movie worse. It just doesn’t work to have a famous familiar face for the vampire in this movie. The Swedish version greatly benefits from the cast of extremely talented but unfamiliar actors. Other than that, the American version is still pretty good, as the source material is so good and it sticks close to it. But I think if you’re going to watch either movie instead of reading the novel, just go straight to the Swedish original. It’s really the one.
Apparently there’s an American TV series now too. Ugh.