Sunday 24 May 2009

Films: Coraline vs Let The Right One In

I went to see Coraline in 3D this weekend, and very good it was too. It is a quirky animation, following the story of a girl with inexplicably blue hair and with parents who are pre-occupied with work. She finds a trapdoor in her house that leads to another world, which is essentially, a trippier version of her own. Her parents are nicer, except her 'other' mum and dad have buttons for eyes, and want Coraline to join that crazy club, too. She's not so keen. The whole thing had a very creepy feel to it, and was quite scary in parts I thought, for little kids. But I liked a lot of it, the cat, the garden, the dogs, it all felt a bit rabbit-holeish (that bit with the old women doing the play, for example- most peculiar). The 'other' mum was particularly alarming; especially when she turned into a particularly mean version of Victoria Beckham towards the end. I'd say see it at the cinema in 3D for the whole experience. But I think Coraline needs a good square-meal, her legs were looking a bit stringy.
I also finally got round to watching Let The Right One In, which you may or may not know is named after the Morrissey song Let The Right One Slip In (which got mis-translated from Swedish). Not sure how the two relate, but Mozzy and vampires are alright by me (although he's ill again, perhaps some blood-drinking might help?) Anyway, LTROI was beautifully shot, well cast, and definitely very unusual. My friend said she thought I'd find it slow, but I thought it was compelling enough that the pace was acceptable, and the story was always moving along.
It wasn't particularly scary, more focusing on the love story between the two main characters, a 12 year old boy and a vampire who was hundreds of years old, but looked like a 12 year old girl. So why did she fancy him? Was she a paedo? I was quite accepting of her character as a killer and a potential kiddy-fiddler, oddly. Anyway, he WAS quite cute, I liked his hair.
I was somewhat perplexed that the police didn't seem to be looking for the killer throughout the film, but hey, why let technicalities like that get in the way of a good yarn?
It kind of lost it for a minute when there was a very dodgy bit of special effects involving some cats (what is it with vampire films and cheapo effect; yes I'm taking about you too, Twilight), but the ending made up for it. Very much recommended.

2 comments:

Thrill Fiction said...

I'm a huge fan of vampire stories and LTROI is welcomed indeed. Too much of vampirism is erotic/dross. I don't want to be turned on - that's what women are for. I wanna be scared.

LTROI was slow withoout being plodding, creepy as opposed to scary. The adult humans were creepier of all. Shame it'll be a good 5 years or so before another good V film is made.

Recommended: Ultraviolet (TV series).

Anonymous said...

Ultraviolet is one of my favourite shows ever!

MLE x