Let the Right One In
3.0 Stars
4-5-2024

A well written but depressing and thematically confused story about a Swedish vampire that goes around, Quantum Leap style, helping out people in trouble. A few notes: from the book's portrayal Finland seems like a truly dire place, where absolutely no one is happy. The participants in the novel are all either depressed, drunk, druggies, hapless, befuddled, unlucky, miserable, sick, pathetic, sadists, criminals, hollow church goers, cops, or some combination of the above. I feel a little a bit about the place like I do when looking pictures of the worst Micronesian islands, that oh wow you guys really got stuck settling the absolute end of existence, where things are just a notch more habitable than the complete void of outerspace. And it shows in their affect. So much of this novel could have been avoided if these people had just managed to live in a place that is not an Artic wasteland, where people could just get a little sunshine each day and relax and feel decent. Note 2: the books go much darker than the movies. It takes a while, but they eventually get to at least the outskirts of Throne of Bones territory, and I can see why the movie adaptations of the book looked at the last third of the novel and just said "nope nope nope" and left it on the cutting room floor.