The movie was billed as a "sweet coming of age story with a vampire twist" some called it a grown ups Twilight. I watched the movie and wondered at how so many people who are "professionals" could be so wrong. Were they watching the same movie? Either they weren't or they had no understanding of what this movie was about. This was not a "sweet coming of age story" this was a horrific story about a dark, life altering choice for a young man.
Spoiler ahead, just a warning, don't think anyone who will be reading this will want to watch this movie anyway but warning...
The story begins with a boy during the awkward years that gap elementary and high school. He is picked on by those around him and is ignored by his parents. Left for hours alone he develops a fascination with death, he keeps newspaper clippings of murders that he flips through. He has a knife that he keeps close and caresses after thumbing through the articles. He spends time alone in the courtyard and stabs at trees reciting the same phrases used by his bullies. One night a new family moves in, a father and daughter.
The man covers the windows of the apartment. Later you see him ambushing a man in a wooded area, he strings him up in a tree and bleeds him into a container. Some women walking a dog disturb him before he is finished. The man runs and next you see him he is frightened and pathetic mass being berated by a small girl. The shot focuses on the man, slumped low against the wall, terrified of whoever the girl is.
The girl leaves. A group of people are walking home, a man splits from his companions and walks underneath a bridge, a small figure ask him to help her. He walks to her asking if she needs help, she says yes, says that she's been hurt and can't walk. He moves towards her telling her not to worry he will help, he gets close and she suddenly wraps around him, clinging to him and his neck as she kills him. The girl is revealed to be a young girl Eli.
This is the introduction of the two main characters in the film, Oskar a disturbed, bullied boy and Eli a evil vampiric entity. What comes after can play at being a sweet love story between Oskar and Eli. They meet, find companionship in their loneliness, she helps him learn to deal with the bullies, she gains a much needed friend. That is not the movie though, that is the deception Eli is acting out for Oskar.
The misunderstanding of this movie stems from a misunderstanding of Eli. She is a parasite, she is evil wrapped in a twelve year old girls body. The movie is about Oskar's seduction by this vampire. Everything about her is a deception. She looks twelve but says that she has been twelve for a long time. She acts sweet towards Oskar but she is a brutal killer. She has obviously decieved most of the audience as well. Was this intended? Did the filmmaker intend for Eli to draw the audiences sympathy?
I find it hard to understand how.
Eli is Oskar's dark longings, his homicidal imagination. She is the dark thing that is growing in his soul during his neglect and beatings.
If this movie were made only 10 or 15 years ago it may have been different. There may have been redemption at the end, there might have been a moment when Oskar recognized Eli for a vampire and not a friend. This movie is to modern for that, it finishes in the middle of the story, after the consummation of wrath, leaving you to wonder how long this "happiness" of Oskar's will last. There will be that moment in life where you recognize what evil has done to you. You will be confronted with the results of your selfishness, your lust, your rage, it is the law of reaping and sowing.
How do so many people see something so different in this movie? After doing a few quick searches I found out that the book was much more straight forward. There is no ambiguity there, reviews of the book talk of how malevolent Eli is. This may be the most pure horror I have seen in a while, it is the destruction of a young boy's soul, his surrender to something dark.
This movie is an unfinished story that would make a great illustration for a sermon.
