Image Journal on Let the Right One In

Jeffrey Overstreet, writing for Image Journal, meditates on Let the Right One In:

Here’s a horror film with truly haunting implications. You may walk away thinking about how young people fall into street-gang warfare or religious extremism. When the proper role models fail to step up, charismatic and powerful monsters too easily fill the void. In This is England, Shaun walks past the Church of Christ. The windows are boarded shut. There’s not a believer in sight. He’s off to play with the neo-Nazis. In Let the Right One In, Oskar smiles for joy when his guardian demon comes to the rescue. Whether his beloved is male or female, we know he’ll rise up and return the favor.

As I write this, kids are shouting obscenities at one another on the street corner outside. It’s the language they’ve been taught. They’re turning to those who have time for them. Who can blame them? All these lonely twelve-year-olds, looking for love and failing to find it in all the right places. I pray for some of “the right ones” to intervene.