John Ajvide Lindqvist writes a killer vampire novel, then adapts it into an even better film.

"Let the Right One In" (Originally published as "Let Me In")
By John Ajvide Lindqvist
Translated from the Swedish by Ebba Segerberg. St. Martin's Griffin, 480 pages, $15.95.

Reviewed by Tommy Wallach

"For there are two things which are remarkable in the novel – the first is the confident reliance on superstition as furnishing the groundwork of a modern story; and the second, more significant still, is the bold adaptation of the legend to such ordinary spheres of latter-day existence as the harbour of Whitby and Hampstead Heath."
Daily Telegraph, review of Bram Stoker's "Dracula," 3 June 1897

A few days ago, I treated myself to the film adaptation of John Ajvide Lindqvist's terrifying vampire novel "Let the Right One In." It turned out to be one of those creatures far more rare than any mythological beast: a movie so good it surpassed its source material. Most surprising of all, Lindqvist was responsible for the script. It was almost as if the novel itself were just a draft, and the film, the finished work. Either way, "Let the Right One In" is a pleasure, as consistently interesting as it is twisted.
Scene from the film version of "Let the Right One In"
The novel follows a number of characters in the Swedish town of Blackeberg. They are working-class folks, whose family troubles and money anxieties don't leave much room to worry about the supernatural. Twelve-year-old Oskar spends his recesses devising ways to hide from the school bullies, who torture him with a cruelty rarely seen in literature, though often practiced in locker rooms and cafeterias.

Early in the novel, he strikes up a friendship with Eli, the strange girl who moves in next door, and who only comes out at night. Their conversations flow effortlessly, in the manner of the young, and Oskar's interior monologues during these dialogues never fail to provoke a laugh:

‘Hey there.'
‘Hi.'
‘Hi.'
He was never in his life going to say ‘hey there' to someone ever again. It sounded incredibly stupid.

Lacke, an unemployed, alcoholic forty-something who spends his days jawing with other drunkards in a bar (behold the Swedish social safety net), sees his best friend murdered early in the novel, and becomes obsessed with revenge. Tommy, a rebellious teenager whose mom has just begun to date a cop, acts out by stealing stereo equipment and playing pranks at church.

Yet Lindqvist's book cleaves more closely to the Anne Rice model of vampire yarn than that of Stoker, in that Eli, the pre-teen bloodsucker, is by far the most fascinating character in the novel. When Oskar asks her if she's a vampire, she responds cryptically, "I...live on blood. But I am not...that." And in response to the question of her true age, she says, "I'm only twelve. But I've been that for a long time."

It's an interesting take on the vampire mythos; those who feed regularly keep the body and thus the conscience alive, those who don't become undead monsters. Lindqvist's greatest achievement lies in preserving the reader's sympathy for Eli. Somehow, though we watch her murder two innocent people in cold blood, her own innocence isn't compromised in the process. By the time Oskar falls for her, we already have.

Swirling around this central relationship is all the action and drama of a good genre novel. Eli arrives in Blackeberg with Håkan, a pedophile whom she rescued from drunken degradation, and who returns the favor by killing for her and bringing back the blood. A series of plot twists transform him into the kind of monstrosity that Eli could never be: he burns away his face with acid, and becomes an undead vampire. A manhunt—or vampirehunt—goes into effect. As a random journalist describes it: "It's a search for the archetypal Monster. This man's appearance, what he's done. He is The Monster, the evil at the heart of all fairy tales. And every time we catch it, we like to pretend it's over for good."

Vampire HÃ¥kan gives the novel some of its most gripping scenes, but also some of its most blatantly cinematic. Lindqvist seems to be thinking forward to the film adaptation, giving us lines that read like cheesy voice-over on the page: "This Friday night is going to be the last one they will ever have all together. Tomorrow one of them will be gone forever...And nothing will ever be the same." A nugatory passage made embarrassing by the translator's choice to use the word "ever" no fewer than three times.

Moments like this were what convinced me that the movie would be a fun but shallow horror flick (not to mention the fact that J.J. Abrams, of "Lost" and "Alias" fame, has already bought the rights to an American remake). Yet each of the moments from the novel I was sure would be realized onscreen was left out. Oskar's first sighting of Eli through the reflection in a knife blade: cut. HÃ¥kan as horrifying, faceless monster: cut. Eli sleeping in a tub full of blood: cut.

Instead, all the best parts of the novel were given room to breathe. The adults, who stole the limelight far too often in the novel, faded pleasantly into the background. Oskar and Eli's relationship bloomed so believably that the fact she subsisted on human blood became inconsequential.

The snowy, uncompromising landscape of Sweden, well evoked in Lindqvist's novel, burst into life with the very first shot of flakes falling in flurries over Blackeberg.

Directed by Tomas Alfredson, the film did better than improve on the book; it reminded me of all the things the book got right. Lindqvist wrote a vampire novel only insofar as it happens to have vampires in it. In the end, "Let the Right One In" is simply a great read.