Ill-Informed Gadfly

“Let the Right One In” is a delightfully wicked revenge fantasy that speaks to anyone who was ever an introverted and persecuted 12-year-old boy (or girl). It taps into that universal desire, one felt more acutely by those who live inside their heads, to find someone accepting and appreciative, someone who’ll help you fight the battles you’ve been longing to wage. This soul mate could be a buddy or a romantic partner. In this inventive and deadpan Swedish movie, Oskar (Kare Hedebrant), finds, in one person, a bit of column A and a bit of column B. Eli (Lina Leandersson) appears to be the girl of his dreams. But when he asks her age, she says she’s 12, “more or less.” (Oskar finds this strange; he knows his age to the day. But he doesn’t pry — he’s too infatuated to press her for uncomfortable answers.) She also asks him if he’d still like her if she wasn’t a girl. At this point, the audience knows what Oskar will figure out at his own deliberate pace: Eli is not a girl, exactly, and she’s certainly not 12. She’s a vampire.

As long as you’re not turned off by blood, as long as you’re down with off-kilter and transgressive humor, Tomas Alfredson’s movie offers a bounty of pleasure. It hits you at odd angles. Set in the early 80s, in the dead of winter, in a Stockholm suburb dominated by dreary, Soviet-style housing projects, it introduces Oskar as he practices pulling a knife on an imagined foe. Oskar is not squeamish: He collects newspaper clippings about murder and mayhem. When a police officer visits his class and asks how investigators might know that a body found in a burning home belongs to a murder victim, Oskar knows the answer: no smoke in the lungs. But outside his fantasy life, he is a helpless victim, unable to fend off the merciless bullying of a classmate.

Eli moves into the apartment across the hall, accompanied by an older man. His job, we learn, is to procure blood for her. We are free to imagine how this relationship began and how long it has lasted. But if the old guy were ever a reliable partner for Eli, he’s lost his nerve entirely. His ineptitude is quietly hilarious. His strategy is to drug an unsuspecting victim, string him up by his ankles, cut his throat and collect the blood with a funnel. But his execution is inefficient, and he’s spooked by an obstacle as unthreatening as a dog. When he has to dispose of a body, he dumps it in a drainage pond where it’s sure to be found. Unable to count on her partner, Eli does the dirty work herself, biting necks. But this leaves her vulnerable to possible discovery. She preys on a band of slow-witted barflies who gradually begin to suspect that all is not well in their town.

The courtship of Oskar and Eli is remarkably sweet. He offers her a piece of candy, which she tries to eat. When he sees her vomiting, he gives her a stiff-armed hug. And she helps him confront the bullies with some timeless advice: Hit back. She really is the perfect girlfriend: She’s cute, if a bit pale, with dark hair and big, haunted eyes. She doesn’t go to school, so she exists outside the binding social order. And Oskar knows that if he ever gets in real trouble, she can come to his aid.

Alfredson does well with longish takes and forceful editing, although he falls victim to excessive artiness at times. Several scenes begin with a moving camera that starts out in the wrong place and gradually demurs to reveal what needs to be seen. But his feel for the material is spot on: He maintains a dryly funny-creepy tone, punctuated by the occasional outrageous image. He delights in taboo-busting. Yes, you’re supposed to laugh — the audience I saw it with mostly just seemed nervous — but you’re also supposed to be emotionally invested. Conventional horror fans will likely just find it strange and chuckle to mask their discomfort. I like movies that intentionally stir conflicted feelings, and “Let the Right One In” evokes some truly guilty pleasure. Innocent people die, and you want to revel in it, but you’re aware that you’re not witnessing cosmic justice. Instead, “Let the Right One In” makes you feel the capriciousness of a coldly indifferent universe. In the world of this movie, a doomed, preadolescent romance between a boy and a vampire is as warm and fuzzy as it gets.