Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant), an overlooked and bullied twelve-year-old, finds companionship and revenge through newcomer Eli (Lina Leandersson), a girl with a deadly secret – she’s a vampire.

Vampire stories are nothing new. With a lot of the folklore surrounding vampires so well known, it is difficult to put an inventive spin on what anyone would know about a vampire. Let the Right One In does do some interesting and different things with the lore, for instance how vampires cannot entire a property without being invited, and this leads to some tense scenes as you’re unsure if the person who entered is friend or foe.

The setting of Let the Right One In is a snowy small town in early 1980s Sweden, where everything feels grubby and depressing. The school, Oskar’s homelife and even the snow-covered playground outside his apartment building where he first meets Eli, feel isolated and unwelcoming.

This fits into how both Oskar and Eli are feeling. They are both social outcasts, albeit for different reasons, and in a cruel, hateful world they find solace in each other. Their relationship is so full of childlike innocence – even though Eli is a lot older than she looks – but there’s also anger bubbling away in them both. The two young leads give great performances, but their characters were difficult to connect to as they were both so (justifiably) reserved.

There’s a group of adult side characters who become entangled in Eli’s life, but they are not particularly interesting and while they allow some more of the vampire myth to be explored (there’s an interesting scene featuring cats) they also feel somewhat pointless as it’s difficult to care about them.

The pacing in Let the Right One In is very strange. For the most part it’s very slow and, with the score and cinematography, very atmospheric but that’s not quite enough to keep you fully engaged. Everything snowballs at the end and that sudden shift of gear is a little jarring.

I had heard a lot of good things about Let the Right One In and I’m pleased I’ve now seen it. However, unfortunately it didn’t blow me away and perhaps it could not live up to the hype. 3/5.