YMMV / Let the Right One In

Literature Examples

• Complete Monster: "The man in the wig" is a vampire noble who is directly responsible for Eli's monstrousness. A wealthy lord who reigned over a peasant village, the man in the wig would lure dozens of people to his abode under guise of a grand buffet, so that he could play a game of chance to decide his next victim. The man in the wig was a sadistic pedophile who enjoyed taking children from their parents so he could lop off their genitals and consume the bloody remains; the man in the wig did this exact thing to Eli—originally a human boy—before feeding on Eli for months to turn her into a vampire. Even centuries later, the man in the wig continues to haunt Eli, with the screaming of hundreds of children following the man wherever he goes.
• Designated Hero:
  • Oskar and Eli are both going to invoke this given the book's use of a lot of flaws in it's characters. While you can justify Eli is killing people because she needs human blood for sustenance, Oskar on the other hand is introduced to the reader as wanting to solve his bullying with murder. This would be one of this case where the characters and some readers are likely to never consider the other one any kind of role model.
  • Lacke can be hit by this for some of the same reasons on a lesser scale. He's out to avenge what happened to be his best friend and part-time love interest but some of his own actions throughout the plot may give this impression to a Moral Guardian even if he's a lesser example in comparison to Oscar and Eli.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • When Eli shows Oskar what he looks like through her eyes: handsome and strong. Admit it, after all the crap he went through, and with all his insecurity, that was a welcome Mood Whiplash to such a dark novel.
  • Behind the horror of Eli brutally decapitating Jonny and Jimmy, there's the near-unanimous agreement by witnesses that Oskar's rescue was carried out by "an angel".
• It Was His Sled: Eli is a eunuch, being the most notable difference between the original and the remake.
• Nausea Fuel: Håkan attempting to rape Eli is described in graphic detail. Lindqvist has stated himself how uncomfortable he was writing that scene.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • In the book, Håkan. He starts off as a pedophile murdering someone for their blood, which is pretty creepy to begin with, and just gets worse as the story goes on. The incident when he pours acid over his face stands out, along with all the subsequent descriptions of what his face looks like afterward. Mindless!Vampire!Håkan is even worse, especially when he tries to rape Eli.
    • Cranked up to eleven when Eli as he escapes nigh rape, unwittingly traps Tommy inside the completely dark bomb shelter together with Disfigured!Mindless!Zombie!Rapist!Vampire!Håkan for several hours. Tommy manages to pull through, but is clearly not all that well adjusted aftewards.
• Squick: Oh so abundant in the book, gets worse towards the end. It also includes a lot more detail on pedophilia than the film.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Virginia in the hospital, Lacke in the elevator (book only in both cases.)
  • Eli breaking down when he contemplates his plan for leaving. Especially since it means leaving behind the only friend he's had for 200+ years. Not Growing Up Sucks indeed.
• The Woobie: Seriously, is anyone in this story not a woobie? Even the mean ones end up horrifically.

Film Examples

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Does Eli care for Oskar or is she just grooming another "slave"? The novel states that this is absolutely not the case and that Eli does care for Oskar. The Swedish film ends up being a lot more ambiguous since we don't have access to the characters' thoughts, nor enough information about Eli and Håkan's relationship.
  • Does Oskar see Eli as just a bodyguard, or worse, a murder accessory? This isn't helped by his deadpan expression when Jimmy is threatening to gouge his eye out, almost like as if he knew Eli was going to come to his rescue.
  • Why is Håkan jealous of Oskar? In the book it's clear he's a pedophile whom Eli keeps on a tight leash, but the movie audience can infer that Håkan met Eli the same way Oskar did. In the american remake this is the case, with Owen finding a photo of Abby and the father when he was a child.
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: Much was made of the scene where Oskar's dad's friend coming over in slippers to have a drink, but social drinking like this is more common in Sweden.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: There are two outcomes of the ending; one is that Oskar takes on the role of The Renfield for Eli and procures blood for her for the rest of his life, the other (endorsed by Word of God and made canon by the sequel novel) is that she turns him into a vampire. It's the closest thing to it for Oskar and Eli.
• Hollywood Pudgy: Oskar in the movie was subjected to Adaptational Attractiveness, and yet his bullies still frequently call him "Piggy" as an insult. In the remake, the insult is changed to "Little Girl."
• Magnificent Bastard: Eli is a vampire who, stuck in the body of a preteen, manipulates an older man into collecting blood for her. When he starts to yield less blood, Eli pretends to be injured and helpless so that she can feed off a stranger before draining her servant on his request and making it look like a suicide. At the same time, Eli befriends and falls in love with a troubled boy named Oskar, even managing to resist her hunger when he cuts himself. Eventually deciding to flee the area after being forced to kill somebody in her own home, she sticks around long enough to slaughter a group of bullies who had been tormenting Oskar, managing to convince him to leave with her.
• Misaimed Fandom: Many viewers see the film as an innocent, tender love story, but there are darker sides to Eli's character, and the filmmakers confirmed that they wanted it to be ambiguous whether she loves Oskar or is manipulating him, and the viewer could make up their own mind whether the ending was happy or not.
• Nightmare Fuel: Two kids sharing a first kiss over the body of a neighbor Eli just killed, with his blood still on his lips.
  • The pool massacre. While the victims are completely unsympathetic, having it all from the perspective of under the water, which gives us only muffled screaming and brief glimpses of what Eli is doing (one boys legs kicking as he goes through the water before suddenly stopping, a severed head falling into the pool, the very hand holding Oskar’s head under falling off in a bloody mess) makes for a truly chilling scene that earned its place in horror history.
• Special Effect Failure: The cats attacking Virginia in the movie look obviously fake.

For YMMV on the remake see Let Me In.

Series Examples

• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: None of the major characters except Naomi and Isaiah are innocent of murder, and if you don't find their reasons sympathetic, it's hard to care whether the Kanes or the Logans come out on top.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Mark, Arthur and Claire, to anyone who wouldn't sacrifice several dozen times as many of other people's loved ones just to keep their own alive. Especially Mark, since his hopes of finding a cure for Eleanor are largely pie-in-the-sky and he has no idea what he'd do with the vampire who bit her if he did find him, whereas Arthur and Claire are at least approaching Peter's infection in a scientific manner that could conceivably one day lead to a cure for vampirism.

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