Taking Victoria Alexander Seriously: Let the Right One In

"Let the Right One In" was a fantastic movie, one of the best of the year. Even though Victoria Alexander agrees with me, her review still infuriates me and makes me almost dislike the film by association. This is why we're going to take Victoria seriously. Most of the people who would urge us to just ignore her would probably cite the fact that she tends to love bad movies and hate good ones, that she's just a troll looking for attention. I don't care. We're not really concerned with how much a critic likes or dislikes a film; we're concerned with how crappy they are at communicating their opinions via the written word. And Victoria is one of the worst communicators of the past millennium.

Things you should know about Vickie A:
1. She looks and acts like a middle-aged Katy Perry trying to recapture the sauciness! of what made her stupid face famous twenty years earlier, even though she doesn't realize everyone got tired of it five months before "I Kissed a Girl" got annoying. She also has Jaws teeth, apparently. That is the only picture of her that exists on the internet.
2. She is very, very bad at writing professional movie reviews, and probably just as bad at writing non-professional ones.
3. She likes to go on train-of-thought tangent-rants that make Thom Fowler's Coen Brothers paragraph look like it belonged perfectly well in an article about Monster's Inc.
4. She loves the idea of homosexuality. She's the kind of girl who thinks it's wrong if she doesn't go shopping with Stereotypically Gay Male Friend Who Tells It Like It Is And Calls Her "Girlfriend" And Is Always Wearing A Pink Polo With The Collar Popped Because Gay Guys Are Allowed To Do That. As such, homosexuality is mentioned in the reviews of every single movie that includes two or more male characters.
5. She is the first person who needs to be kicked out of the RT database.

Which brings us to our feature presentation! (sorry for the esoteric movie jargon! ^_^)

Let the Right One In
By
Victoria Alexander
FilmsInReview.com

A great intro, makes us really believe that she's writing in the 1940s via typewriter, smoking a cigar and drinking scotch.

The best vampire movie of the year.

Oh yeah, she always starts her reviews with the blurb she wants RT to use. Because she's on Rotten Tomatoes, and by jove, she likes to rub it in.

Also, what. If this is a joke, good job, Vickie. You've successfully handed it to Twilight fans. Not really, but any respectable critic could've used such a quip.

I've been given no reason to believe you're joking, though, V.

Remember in Anne Rice's Interview With A Vampire when iconic vampire Lestat de Lioncourt made six-year old Claudia a vampire? She then stayed six years old forever and was very angry about it.

"This would make a great opener for a review of the film Let the Right One In!"
-a wrong person

The film does indeed feature a young female vampire… and it shares absolutely nothing more in common with anything in this passage. Victoria acknowledges this by continuing her review and never mentioning anything about it again.

In the brilliant, macabre, mood rich Swedish movie, "Let the Right One In", it is the 1980s and shy 12-year old Oskar (Kare Hedebrant) is living with his mother in a Stockholm suburb and bullied by his schoolmates.

I can play this game!

In this clueless, grating, owwie rich review of "Let the Right One In," America is in a recession and 18-year-old-at-heart Victoria Alexander (Victoria Alexander) is an atrocious human being in Las Vegas and sometimes decides to just fall asleep on the couch and pretend not to be there rather than get up and potentially make noise when someone knocks on the door even if the person is just the mailman who wants her to sign off on a package that was sent by her aunt, Christine, for her forty-third birthday.

Writing tip for Victoria: just because the synopsis isn't the most "important" part of the review, it doesn't mean you should just fart it out as quickly as possible. Fortunately, there's more!

One evening in the courtyard he meets pale, underdressed Eli (Lina Leandersson). She has just moved in next door to Oskar with an older man who takes care of her, Hakan (Per Ragnar). Oskar and Eli meet every night and soon bond. Oskar wants Eli to be his girlfriend but she tells him she is not like other girls. In a wonderful moment of true acceptance, Oskar doesn't mind if she's a boy. We soon find out that Eli is a vampire and Hakan murders people for their blood for her.

OH FUCK SPOILER i guess.

Whoops, spoilers don't matter unless they're plot twists. This is the Vickie A Way. You will often find her describing only the things we'd like to discover for ourselves, as we, you know, watch the movie. Which makes me think that she's actually one of those critics that wants to be read after the film is watched… so we can hear her wonderful thoughts and reflections.

"In a wonderful moment of true acceptance, Oskar doesn't mind if she's a boy."

It was really amazing, by the way, how the director could get his actors to show the audience the emotion of "not minding." He also got us to see "slight hunger" and "foot almost falling asleep" without any dialogue, movement, or sound effects. (my point here is that this sentence is a complete mess because she's too lazy to just write "Oskar admits that he doesn't mind if she's a boy." It also completely undermines 100% of the context of the scene and all of the character development attached to it. It also brings us back to Victoria Characteristic #4: GAYS!)

"We soon find out that Eli is a vampire and Hakan murders people for their blood for her."

YOU ARE SO BAD AT THIS

Anyway, here's the real reason I picked this article, and it's a sure good reason:

When Hakan is arrested at a vicious crime scene, Eli must kill. Oskar becomes her confidante. He's not afraid of her. Encouraged by Eli to confront his tormentors, the result spirals to a fascinating, and quite satisfying, conclusion.

And the hope for a sequel.

"HUH"

"WHAT"

"WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"
-every single person who has seen "Let the Right One In," besides Victoria Alexander

This is one of those movies in which there's no conceivable way to create a sequel. There is no conceivable reason to want a sequel. It's like saying, "Gee, why haven't they come out with a Deliverance 2 yet? And I've always wanted a Cool Hand Luke 2! Or, oh! Breakfast at Tiffany's! They can get Kate Winslet!"

Not only that, but "Let the Right One In" has a perfect ending, and that quality comes from the fact that it ends where it does. It's emotionally ambiguous, the kind of ending that allows the audience to want to contemplate and discuss what happens afterward without ever actually knowing. From that point on, the viewer makes their own decision about what happens… and there aren't many options, not enough to warrant a damn sequel you dumb jerk.

There are very few films that allow this kind of speculation. The fact that Katy Perry wants to tear one away from me… I just can't forgive that.

Eli is not a magical, ethereal vampire beauty but an unkempt girl suffering from blood starvation, an animal's instinct to survive, and a frightening feral look. She's very strange. She could be Nosferatu's niece.

Nosferatu's niece! Get it!? Nosferatu was also a character of vampire lore! Eli is a young, female vampire! NIECE! NIECE!

Vampirism isn't genetic, BITCH.

Director Tomas Alfredson has made a stunning, darkly complex film using the Swedish dark nights as an important element in the vampire myth.

Ah, yes, the famed "Swedish dark nights"—a phenomenon that only occurs in Sweden, in which nights are dark.

I urge you to see or rent this film and hope we can encourage a sequel.

I am going to destroy you and everyone you've ever loved.

As far as a Hollywood remake goes, is Dakota Fanning ready to look dirty, smelly, hungry and an unrepentant killer?

Dakota Fanning joke! Topical humor!!!!!

Also, this is not how sentences work. Is Victoria Alexander ready to write annoyingly, nauseatingly, smellily (probably), and a bad cook?

(Not that she doesn't have it in her. She's a product of Hollywood.)

What the hell is this? Is it sarcasm? Is Vickie admonishing Hollywood? Somehow? Is she making fun of the original for being Swedish? Huh?

Maybe her next paragraph will explain!

My weekly column, "The Devil's Hammer," is posted every Monday. The Devil's Hammer on FTB. If you would like to be included on my private distribution list for a weekly preview, just email me at masauu@aol.com.

Victoria Alexander lives in Las Vegas, Nevada and answers every email. You can contact Victoria directly at masauu@aol.com.

Nope, apparently that's it. Huh? =(

We'll wait until we've gotten past Katy Perry jokes before we email her, though.