Let the Right One In – Blu-ray Disc Review

March 7, 2009 – 11:16 PM - Posted by: Justin Sluss

Tags: John Ajvide Lindqvist, KÃ¥re Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson, Magnolia, Tomas Alfredson

has an average rating of 8.2 on IMDb
1080p in VC-1 on a 25gb disc
DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio
are a tad short but still sweet
–
– 2008
– 115 minutes
– Magnolia
–
This uses 22.0GB for the movie out of 23.1GB total.
Street Date: March 10th, 2009

Overall Verdict – Recommended

Buy it for $19.99 @ Amazon.com

— Review written by: Justin Sluss —

Trailer:

The Movie Itself is a very artistic, dramatic Swedish horror film Directed by Tomas Alfredson that has been widely acclaimed by critics. Based on the novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist, the story tells the friendship between a twelve-year-old boy named “Oksar” (played by Kåre Hedebrant) and a girl of the same age, named “Eli” (played by Lina Leandersson) who moves in to the apartment next door. Our main character Oskar is a very shy and timid young man and doesn’t have really any friends we come to learn early on in the film. He also seems to be regularly picked on by a group of bullies at school. Because of the constant harrasment at school, Oskar trains himself in his room at night using a little knife. It’s during this routine one night that he discovers, through his window to his room that a man and his daughter are moving in to his apartment complex. The girl and the man who appears to be her father move into the apartment next door and keep to themselves, not making friends.

One night Oskar is outside practicing stabbing a tree with his knife when he’s surprised by the girl. She appears behind him on a playground piece and tells him that she cannot be friends with him. It’s obvious she doesn’t want to be friends but she returns to the location the following nights and the two develop a friendship. Oskar lends Eli his Rubik’s cube which really starts the friendship and soon the two learn Morse code to communicate at nights through the walls of their adjoining apartments. The more Oskar gets to know Eli, he soon learns that she isn’t actually a 12-year-old girl but instead a vampire. This would likely scare most people away from Eli but it instead interests Oskar and seems to draw him in to liking her even more.

Overall, in closing — “Let the Right One In” is easily one of the most innovative horror films of this decade (so-far) and one of, if not the best horror film of 2008. It doesn’t rely on using an excess of blood and traditional vampire folklore as much as it unique and stands on it own as a very creative piece of cinematic adaption of a novel. If you haven’t already, see what the critics are raving about and give “Let the Right One In” a watch on Blu-ray Disc.

Video Quality on this release is in full 1080p using the VC-1 codec on a BD-25 (25 gigabyte single-layer Blu-ray Disc) in the 2.35:1 aspect ratio.

The film was shot using Arriflex cameras and Zeiss lenses on Super 35mm film and makes for an excellent transfer to Hi-Def with a very unique visual style. The black level here is as solid as ink, the whites are extremely bright thanks to the snowy landscapes of Sweden, fleshtones are accurate despite the paleness of our two leading characters and the color palette is actually vibrant at times but for the most part somewhat dull to fit the mood of the film. The level of detail is very impressive in close-ups at times and holds very little sign of film noise or grain. There doesn’t seem to be any compression issues present here despite the choice to put this on a 25gb disc. In the end, “Let the Right One In” is done justice here in it’s Hi-Def debut and earns a solid “4 Star Rating” for overall video quality.

Audio Quality on this release is presented in DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio in both the original Swedish and dubbed English languages. Given I don’t speak Swedish, I still preferred the original Swede track over the dubbed English which seems a little too “hookey” for me. From the very start of the film you’ll notice the wonderful use of the 5.1 soundscape by the film’s original music by Johan Söderqvist. Later you’ll hear some use of the 5.1 soundscape to deliver sound effects such as the blood draining into the plastic container from the body of our first victim around 10 minutes in. It’s examples like this scene that sound extremely realistic and definitely set the vibe for the film perfectly.

The dialogue is delivered very distinct throughout even though I will admit without subtitles, I have very little clue what they are saying when listening to the Swedish track. For an at times, slow moving foreign film in Swedish (even with the English dub) this has a very impressive audio presentation and earns a very nice “4.5 Star Rating” for overall audio quality.

Bonus Materials are presented in Standard Definition video (using MPEG-2) and Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo sound — unless noted differently in the description. One thing worth mentioning is that the menu to the film is in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround @640kbps and features the film’s unique artwork and logo. This is very nice to see included and deserves to be both mentioned and bragged about.

• Subtitles are included in English Narrative, English, English SDH and Spanish which you’ll most likely find yourself enabling to use the original Swedish audio track.
• Deleted Scenes (5:52 – SD) are presented, four in total with Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround @448kbps sound.
• “Behind the Scenes” (7:37 – SD) includes an interview with Director Tomas Alfredson discussing his film — in English which is very nice to have included. This proves to be a definite must-watch if you enjoyed the film.
• “Photo Gallery” includes some still photographs from the set of the film.
• “Theatrical Poster Gallery” is self-explanatory by it’s title.

Overall, the bonus materials we get here are yes, short but at the same time very sweet in the sense we do get an English “making of” featurette hosted by the Director. The few featurettes included are all worth watching if you enjoyed this innovative horror film and should leave you pleased. Still, they could have been much better and don’t earn the highest score as a result.

Blu-ray Disc packaging:

NOTE: The full-sized 1920×1080 files are in a .PNG file format and uncompressed. Bare with the slow loading times, keep in mind these files are at least 1MB (1 megabyte) in size each.

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