On a bit of a movie streak, I also tuned in a vampire movie from Netflix. I'd started this one before, but I was watching it out of the corner of my eye, as background noise while I worked at home. Unfortunately, the film is in Swedish, and I couldn't pay attention to the subtitles.
The movie starts as someone moves into an apartment building in the middle of the night. We are introduced to our main character, Oskar, as he watches them move into the apartment next door. Oskar, it turns out, is bullied at school. The neighbor, it turns out, is a "more or less" 12-year old vampire, Eli. Of course, Eli has been 12 for a long, long time.
I planned to just watch this one before digging into anything. Since I knew the movie was subtitled, and since my co-worker (who recommended Deadgirl) also suggested Let Me In, an in-English remake of Let The Right One In, I settled in for a little movie reading. I had planned to break periodically as I did some laundry, so that was my excuse for early morning movie watching.
I had an unhappy bit of Netflix with this one. I had started with it on the big screen, the 50-inch TV, but while the movie was in letterbox, any subtitles that appeared on the top half of the screen (about half of them, it turns out), were cut off in the letter box. I turned the same film on the Mac, and the letterbox was still there, but the subtitles appeared. Since I have to read (not understanding Swedish), I relocated to the office and plugged the Mac into the 24-inch to watch there.
Once settled in, the movie was actually quite good. The title art says it's memsmerizing, and it must have been, as I didn't pause to do any laundry.
The movie's really about the budding friendship and near romance of Oskar and Eli. There are little bits of Oskar getting bullied and Eli being a vampire, separated as they operate in their own parts of the day. During the little bit of time they have in the evenings, they become buddies. At one point Eli says "I'm not a girl," although she looks and sounds like one (and is played by a female actress), which doesn't seem to bother Oskar.
One evening, Oskar wants to be "blood-tied," and cuts his hand, intending Eli to do similar. This sends Eli into a blood frenzy, which introduces Oskar to Eli's darker side. This doesn't deter Oskar, but rather arouses his curiosity and deepens their bond.
There are plenty of good vampire bits in there. It happens that in the new place, Eli's <em>Renfield</a> has difficulty securing blood, requiring Eli to hunt. This causes its own troubles as one of the neighbors notices a feeding from his window, which leads to him snooping around a little bit.
Oskar's confidence grows due to Eli's encouragement, and at one point in the middle of the film he stands up to his nemesis, hitting him in the ear with a long pole. At the same time, they find one of Eli's victims in the ice at the lake (on which they were supposed to be skating when Oskar hit the bully...).
The snooping and body and fighting lead to the exciting climax, which I think you should watch for yourself... It is a good movie, subtitles and all. I've got the remake on my queue, as it isn't available to watch instantly.
