Let the Right One In

A vampire can’t enter a house unless invited—everyone knows that. You have to call into your life what will destroy you… or perhaps save you? A lonely twelve-year-old boy named Oscar lives in a working-class neighborhood on the outskirts of Stockholm; it’s the very beginning of the eighties. At school he is cruelly bullied, and all Oscar can do is run to the forest and, out of helpless hatred, stab trees with a knife, pretending they are his classmates. But Oscar isn’t the only one wandering around the local forests with a knife. One day, they find a boy his age there: his throat cut, hanging by the legs from a tree. They suspect a ritual killing. But Oscar’s thoughts are occupied by something more important: a very beautiful girl has moved into the neighboring stairwell with her father. A strange family—sitting at home all day with the windows shuttered. And there is clearly something wrong with the girl—something strange. And she comes out only at night…

“Let Me In” is a dark, tense, original thriller that effortlessly avoids the romantic clichés of genre vampire literature. Films based on the book were made both in the author’s homeland, Sweden, and in the United States. The director of the 2010 American adaptation “Let Me In,” written by Lindqvist himself, was the well-known director Matt Reeves (“Planet of the Apes: Revolution,” “Planet of the Apes: War,” “Batman” (2022)).