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''Låt den rätte komma in'' (English: ''Let The Right One In'') is a 2004 horror novel by Swedish author John Ajvide Lindqvist, who adapted his story for the 2008 film version. It's the story of Oskar, a 12-year-old boy who is being bullied at school. One night, he meets Eli, a girl who just moved in next door with her dad. Eli isn't affected by the cold, however, and it's quickly shown her "dad" kills people and drains their blood to feed her. As Oskar befriends Eli and more people go missing, some people start becoming suspicious.
''Let The Right One In'' is most notable for being simultaneously heartwarming and horrifying. Although it has few outright scares, it can be a deeply disturbing movie, as their relationship invokes both young love and a temptation into darkness.
An English-language remake directed by Matt Reeves (of ''[[Cloverfield]]'' fame) and starring Chloë Grace Moretz (''[[Kick
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{{tropelist}}
* [[A Boy and His X]]: A boy and his murderous vampire.▼
* [[Adaptational Attractiveness]]: In the book, Oskar is an overweight child, and there's more description of Eli being filthy and mangy.
* [[Adaptation Distillation]]: The Swedish version distills it down to just the boy and the vampire, with a minor subplot about the strained relationship of an older couple, all other elements solely serving to move the A plot forward. The American version distills it further, so that barely any characters other than the boy and the vampire even register, and one new character is created to
* [[Adaptation Dye Job]]: Eli's hair was dark, Abby's is blonde. Vice versa with Oskar and Owen.
* [[The Alcoholic]]: Oskar's dad, adding to the guy's overall misery.
* [[Ambiguously Gay]]: A ''lot'' of people thought Oskar's dad was gay in the Swedish film due the scene where his friend comes over for drinks and Oskar acts uncomfortable. [[Word of God]] (and the original book) clarifies that that he was just an alcoholic and that his friend was a drinking buddy.
* [[Apologetic Attacker]]: Hakan in the book.▼
* [[Anti-Villain]]: Lacke, and how.
▲* [[Apologetic Attacker]]: Hakan in the book.
* [[Battle Discretion Shot]]: The climax of both films where {{spoiler|Eli/Abby slaughters all of the bullies}}. See [[Gory Discretion Shot]].
* [[Berserk Button]]: Don't screw with a vampire's best friend.
* [[Beware the Nice Ones]]: Staffan (a character in the novel) is pretty clearly implied to have anger issues.
* [[Big Damn Heroes]]: Just as Oskar is in the process of drowning, Eli shows up to
* [[Big Damn Kiss]]: Oskar and Eli... {{spoiler|with Lacke's blood dripping from Eli's mouth
* [[Bilingual Bonus]]: Mr. Vila complains in Argentinean Spanish about how messy the students are.
** In the last scene of the Swedish film, Oskar taps "kiss" in Morse code to Eli and Eli taps back "small kiss".
* [[Bloodless Carnage]]: ''Relatively'', in the Swedish film version at least, with [[Gory Discretion Shot|Gory Discretion Shots]] or long-range/obscured views preferred – so the horrifying slaughter is conveyed with surprisingly almost no blood to be seen, considering how much is let. The Hollywood remake didn't hold back nearly as much, though.▼
* [[Blondes Are Evil]]: Abby isn't evil [[Creepy Child|but]]...
▲* [[Bloodless Carnage]]: ''Relatively'', in the Swedish film version at least, with [[Gory Discretion Shot|Gory Discretion Shots]] or long-range/obscured views preferred – so the horrifying slaughter is conveyed with surprisingly almost no blood to be seen, considering how much is let. The Hollywood remake didn't hold back nearly as much, though.
▲* [[A Boy and His X]]: A boy and his murderous vampire.
* [[Boy Meets Ghoul]]
* [[Chastity Couple]]: According to the director, Oskar and Eli are meant to be this, due to their age
* [[Chekhov's Gun|Chekhov's Gun Trophy]]: In the novel, Staffan's gun trophy is later used to bludgeon
* [[Chekhov's Skill]]: The Morse code ending to both films.
* [[Children Are Innocent]]: Even two of the bullies are fairly sympathetic (and one of them even {{spoiler|stays alive}} in the end).
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* [[Cultural Translation]]: The remake.
* [[Cute Shotaro Boy]]: Oskar/Owen in the films. Neither boy could really be called "Piggy".
* [[Deader Than Dead]]: {{spoiler|Håkan}} [[Rasputinian Death|survives quite a bit before finally dying]].
** Though in the movie, {{spoiler|the fall from the hospital window is the end of him
* [[Disproportionate Retribution]]:
** Well, the pool scene in the novel is Jimmy and Jonny's revenge for {{spoiler|accidentally burning their photo album with their father in it
* [[The Dog Bites Back]]: Oskar.▼
* [[Driven to Suicide]]: We are told this is what happens to most vampires. {{spoiler|We're shown it with Virginia and Håkan, though the latter isn't quite successful
** In the movie, {{spoiler|it is only implied that Eli was a boy, never concretely stated}}.
*** Actually, in the film there's a scene where you see the scars rather explicitly, but no explanation how he got them.
*** The remake hints at it, but never outright states it (and a deleted scene
* [[Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette]]: Eli.
* [[Enemy to All Living Things]]: One possible interpretation of the reaction of the cats to Eli and other vampires.
** Oskar describes the feeling upon seeing Eli's "bloodthirsty" face as the same natural fear everyone has of fire or sharp objects.
* [[Evil-Detecting Dog]]: Cats detect and viciously attack vampires on sight.
* [[The Faceless]]: Used in the English-language film to signify this is principally a tale about childhood ([[Not Growing Up Sucks|more or less]]), with adult characters mostly peripheral and often fleeting. Owen's island-like status is
* [[Fan Disservice]]:
▲* [[The Faceless]]: Used in the English-language film to signify this is principally a tale about childhood ([[Not Growing Up Sucks|more or less]]), with adult characters mostly peripheral and often fleeting. Owen's island-like status is emphasised by his absent father only making one scene by telephone, and his mother – a fairly constant presence in the book – appears numerous times yet is ''never once seen properly on camera'': she varies from being a distant figure, a ghostly reflection or obscured by a door, to fully visible yet thrown way out of focus or seen only from the neck down; even a passport-type photo glimpsed in her wallet is crumpled to the point of indistinguishability.
* [[The Film of the Book]]
* [[First Kiss]]: Oskar's first, anyway...
* [[Foreign Remake]]: ''Let Me In'', the American remake.
* [[Fourth Date Marriage]]: Kind of. Oskar hugs Eli and says he likes her the fifth time they meet; the sixth time, the pair cuddle in bed and Oskar asks her to be his girlfriend. Then
* [[Freudian Excuse]]: It's implied that the reason why Kenny bullies Owen more harshly than the others is because he himself is being [[Big Brother Bully|bullied by his big brother]]. His brother even calls him a "little girl" which is what Kenny has been calling Owen.
* [[Gang of Bullies]]
* [[Gilligan Cut]]: Eli tries eating a piece of candy. Cut to Eli throwing up behind a building.
* [[The Glomp]]: Oskar's first hug nearly knocks over the unsuspecting Eli.
* [[Gory Discretion Shot]]: The Swedish film tends to use these, or virtually no blood at all, though the remake lingers rather more on the gore. Arguably the most talked about scene in both films is their pool endings, which play out nearly the same:
* [[Harmful to Minors]]
* [[Hellish Pupils]]: Vampires sometimes have slit pupils.
* [[Heterosexual Life Partners]]: Jocke and Lacke. "I have nothing left now he's gone" says Lacke after Jocke's death, even though his girlfriend, whom he loves, is sitting next to him.
* [[I Just Want to Be Normal]]: Even with the super-strength, [[Blessed
* [[Implacable Man]]: {{spoiler|Zombie Håkan in the novel}}.
* [[Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain]]: Håkan. He isn't awfully good at what he does and gets [["No Respect" Guy|no respect]] for it. A strange example as his incompetence seems to make him ''creepier''.
* [[Intertwined Fingers]]: Eli does this with Oskar in the scene where they cuddle in bed together and he asks her to be his girlfriend.
* [[Kids Are Cruel]]: The bullies. And then far, far more, in {{spoiler|the bullies' punishment}}.
* [[Lampshade Hanging]]: In the book, a policeman muses on the religious symbolism of the name Eli. The other policeman responds "Should I include that in the report?"
* [[Little Miss Badass]]: Eli's vampire powers let her easily take down men twice her size.
* [[Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy]]: In the Swedish film at least Oskar is somewhat effeminate in comparison to the more androgynous Eli (
* [[Mood Whiplash]]: And how!
* [[Nightmare Face]]: Averted with Eli... and played deadly straight with Abby.
* [[Nonhuman Lover Reveal]]:
* [[Not Growing Up Sucks]]: Eli is a 200-year-old vampire stuck physically, and to an extent mentally, as a 12-year-old after being 'turned' at about that age.
* [[Not Using the Z Word|Not Using the V Word]]: Eli is somewhat in denial about being a vampire, preferring to think of it as having an illness. The book does go into the biological specifics of what goes on inside a vampire's body once infected, but being infected with vampirism still unavoidably makes you a vampire.
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** To be specific, along with the common death-by-sunlight, paleness, blood-drinking attributes, these vampires hibernate, cannot enter a house without getting permission, can grow claws on their hands and feet and wings, transfer memories via kiss, and have a second brain growing on their hearts which serves as a second conscious warning them of what to be afraid of and driving them to drink blood.
* [[Prequel]]: The comic ''Let Me In: Crossroads'', which John Ajvide Lindqvist did not want made (he unknowingly sold the comic rights).
* [[Protagonist Journey to Villain]]: The story is one for Oskar, [[Alternate Character Interpretation|possibly.]] He's obsessed with serial killers, thinks about hurting or even killing his bullies,
** [[Word of God]] is that Oskar is fated to turned into a vampire himself. It could be argued that becoming a vampire might make him villainous, but Eli is never portrayed as being evil in any way. She doesn't take pleasure in her actions and his driven simply by her [[Horror Hunger|need to survive]].
* [[Queer Romance]]:
* [[The Renfield]]: Eli starts out with an older 'guardian' who tries to protect her by draining blood out of victims.
** [[Word of God]] is
* [[Scenery Porn]]:
* [[Suicide
* [[Sympathetic Murderer]]: Eli kills people to survive. Oskar wants to kill the bullies for torturing him.
* [[Tears of Blood]]: See the main picture.
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** In the book, Tommy is a strange case. While he spends his free time getting high off glue, stealing stuff, chewing tobacco, and reading porn, he does treat Oskar nicely, as apposed to the bullies. He even tells Oskar to stay away from porn. But tobacco's okay, for some reason.
* [[That Makes Me Feel Angry]]: Used frequently in ''Let Me In''.
* [[Too Dumb to Live]]: Lacke tries to kill Eli with a kitchen knife... that he drops before she even wakes up.▼
▲* [[The Dog Bites Back]]: Oskar.
* [[Trailers Always Spoil]]: The American trailer shows {{spoiler|Virginia's death.}}▼
▲* [[Too Dumb to Live]]: Lacke tries to kill Eli with a kitchen knife...that he drops before she even wakes up.
** Or how about turning his back on a vampire without finishing the job?
** In the book it is stated that he couldn't bring himself to kill a child.
* [[Trial Balloon Question]]: Twofold. Eli asks Oskar if he would still like her if she weren't a girl. He says sure he would. What Eli really means is
** In
* [[Undead Child]]: Subverted. Eli insists she isn't ''technically'' undead.
* {{spoiler|[[Unsettling Gender Reveal]]}}
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* [[The Virus]]: Vampirism is repeatedly referred to in the context of 'being infected'.
* [[Warm Bloodbags Are Everywhere]]
* [[Weakened
* [[White-Haired Pretty Boy]]: Oskar in the Swedish film is about as stereotypically Swedish as you can get. [[Creepy Child|Physically]] [[Protagonist Journey to Villain|speaking]], of course.
* [[Window Love]]: Lots of this. When we first meet Oskar, and again after
* [[Wise Beyond Their Years]]: [[Inverted Trope|Inverted]] by Eli, who despite having lived for over 200 years, is somewhat mentally limited by being physically 12.
** Although at least in the movie, there's a decent question of how much is genuine and how much is a necessary act.
*** [[Word of God]] says she really is supposed to be a 12-year-old; an unusually knowing one, but 12 in mind as well as body. Apparently she goes into long sleeps during which she loses a lot of mental development, hence remaining stuck mentally as well as physically.
▲* [[Window Love]]: Lots of this. When we first meet Oskar, and again after {{spoiler|Eli leaves}}, he presses his hand against his window, perhaps an expression of his isolation and longing for connection. When Eli watches Oskar through the window as he does his after-school session in the swimming pool, she presses her hand against the window for the same reason; in this scene she's also, says [[Word of God]], trying to look like a normal kid by wearing heavy winter clothes although she doesn't feel the cold. Finally, when Oskar comes over to Eli's apartment and asks if she's a vampire, she backs away from him behind a glass-paned door and they press their hands together on opposite sides of the pane, she moving her bare hands around, first one and then the other, and he following with his gloved hands. Right after this, she opens the door to let him through. Also, when Eli comes to Hakan's {{spoiler|hospital room and is sitting outside on the window ledge unable to come in}} she presses her hand to the window.
* [[Your Vampires Suck]]: Amazingly averted. There are virtually no references to any vampire tropes not used in the movie. In many ways, this helps to create a greater sense of realism. The character's are smart enough to know that what works in the movies won't work in real life, and that discussing things in terms of what movies they are or aren't like is totally pointless.
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[[Category:Horror Literature]]
[[Category:Let the Right One In]]
[[Category:Multiple Works Need Separate Pages]]
[[Category:Film]]
[[Category:Cult Classic]]
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