Tomas Alfredson
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Bones and All (2022)
Directed by Luca Guadagnino
influenced by Let the Right One In (2008)
Plot Themes Visuals
Based on a 2015 YA novel by Camille DeAngelis set in the 1980s, it opens with a situation not unlike the start of Tomas Alfredson’s child-vampire film “Let the Right One In” and Matt Reeves’s English-language remake “Let Me In”: teen Maren Yearly (Taylor Russell) lives in Virginia with her father Frank (André Holland), who carefully locks her into her bedroom each night.
The delicate mood and melancholy restraint — shaped in part by the quiet, acoustic foundations from which Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ atmospheric score gradually builds — initially recall Tomas Alfredson’s gorgeous Let the Right One In , another emotionally layered first love depiction that featured a conflicted guardian and a female adolescent with a different kind of need to feed.
It has glimmers of style that are reminiscent of Richard Linklater’s Boyhood , Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood and Tomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In while also being its own artful entity with a singular voice that’s worth jamming on repeat.
But Guadagnino’s seventh feature is unlikely to remind most viewers of that, or any of the other hybrid horror dramas that have come our way since Let the Right One In .
It allows Guadagnino to embrace various influences ranging from Badlands to Let the Right One In .
Initially, it seems like we’re in for a Let the Right One In -style tale of a parent shuttling their monstrous yet still beloved child to the next American backwater, where they can both start anew.
My Heart Can't Beat Unless You Tell It To (2020)
Directed by Jonathan Cuartas
influenced by Let the Right One In (2008)
Themes
While Let the Right One In (2008) comes to mind, Cuartas is more grounded by emotional and social ills, to a degree where it feels more akin to We Are What We Are (2010) mixed with Fists in the Pocket (1965).
My Heart Can’t Beat Unless You Tell It To is both unsettling, and sad, reminiscent of the chilly desolation of Let the Right One In , and bolstered by excellent performances, particularly Fugit, who plays Dwight as resigned, resentful, terrified and naive at the same time.
The film’s somber tone and deliberate pacing are reminiscent of Let the Right One In , but the events depicted here feel weightier and more tragic, despite the former being a better film overall.
The way director Jonathan Cuartas has deconstructed the vampire film here feels different than classics like Let the Right One In or Abel Ferrara’s heroin parable The Addiction .
This is closer in tone to movies like George Romero’s masterpiece “Martin” (1978), the Nicolas Cage hallucinatory black comedy “Vampire’s Kiss” (1989) and the bleak Swedish import “Let the Right One In” (2008), films that stress psychological horrors over fangs in necks and which approach their situations in ways that make you question whether the characters in question actually are vampires or not.
But the film’s conviction and strong performances should appeal to those who appreciated such prior understated, “realistic” spins on vampire cinema as “The Hamiltons,” George A. Romero’s “Martin,” the original “Let the Right One In,” or more recent “The Transmigration.”
All the Old Knives (2022)
Directed by Janus Metz
influenced by Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
Plot Themes Visuals
As directed by Janus Metz (“Borg vs. McEnroe”) from a script by Olen Steinhauer adapting his novel, in concept “Knives” is an espionage chess game in the vein of “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” (2011).
When Tomas Alfredson adapted le Carré’s “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” for instance, he took care to pull out themes of misinformation and the futility of engaging in spycraft.
It’s an intricate piece, in terms of the clues, misdirection and red herrings that Steinhauer doles out in the flashbacks and the undercurrents he suggests in the present-day conversations; but when the puzzle pieces come together, the picture that emerges isn’t terribly surprising, certainly not by comparison to what John le Carré accomplished in his famous mole-hunting tale, ”Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.”
I love a good espionage thriller- Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy comes to mind- where spies gather in rooms to talk, and the details can ramp up the tension.
Though there’s a lack of the arresting, cold, post-war tableaus seen in something like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy , there’s an intense intimacy in its place.
Metz aims for the ethical complexity of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, but at best this is Le Carré Lite.
Black Bag (2025)
Directed by Steven Soderbergh
influenced by Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
Themes Plot Characters
Less maudlin than “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” (2011)…
This is “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” for the emotionally entangled.
Michael Fassbender’s character in Steven Soderbergh’s latest is what I imagine legendary British spy writer John le Carré’s most famous character, George Smiley—a mild-mannered, long-suffering spy with a persistently unfaithful wife—could be if he weren’t such a cuck.
Soderbergh’s latest plays like a workplace drama with elements of Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005) and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011).
Black Bag isn’t Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
Red Sparrow (2018)
Directed by Francis Lawrence
influenced by Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
Themes Plot Visuals
Lawrence no alcanza el formalismo de obras de la talla de Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, pero los clásicos espías de John Le Carré no parecen haber sido el norte del autor Jason Matthews, cuya novela homónima llega a la pantalla a través de la adaptación de Justin Haythe para introducirnos a una agente del gobierno que no ejerce este oficio por voluntad propia, sino a modo de amenaza y tras una cruenta serie de abusos.
It’s presented as a slow, cerebral espionage thriller, more in the vein of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy than a female-led action movie like Salt or Haywire.
You don’t need to have seen Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy or A Most Wanted Man, amongst recent films that may’ve served as inspiration to Lawrence, to know where this goes, which isn’t so much an unexpected direction, as just an expectedly unexpected direction.
Directed by Francis Lawrence, Red Sparrow wants to combine the lurid danger of La Femme Nikita with the cerebral suspense of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
But even as we are appreciating what is successful, starting with the impeccable work of Irons, Rampling and Schoenaerts, it’s hard not to notice that the level of intensity, intelligence and involvement here does not reach the level of classic all-in spy movies like the Bourne films or Tomas Alfredson’s “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” and Anton Corbijn’s “A Most Wanted Man,” both based on novels by the genre’s master, John le Carré.
Red Sparrow is like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, but only if it were directed by Showgirls-era Paul Verhoeven.
…which has appeared in films like “Shadow of the Vampire” (2000), “Let the Right One In” (2008) and “Daybreakers” (2009)…
The horror influences range from films like The Lost Boys and Let the Right One In.
Let the Right One In…
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014)
Directed by Ana Lily Amirpour
influenced by Let the Right One In (2008)
Themes
The freshest take on the vampire genre since “Let the Right One In,” “Night” is an intoxicating mix of genres all deftly and lovingly mashed together.
Fans of "Let The Right One In" may get a similar vibe from some scenes in this movie, but The Girl is no child, nor is Arash ( Arash Marandi ), a gardener struggling with his feelings about his junkie father Hossein ( Marshall Manesh ).
Even allowing for the recent cultural ubiquity of fang fiction, “Girl” is too arch and deliberate to cross over in the manner of “Let the Right One In,” but will continue to draw blood on the festival circuit.
Like "Let the Right One In," which is probably the movie's closest equivalent both because of its off-kilter take on vampire lore and the fact that it's in another language, the movie eventually becomes a romance centered around the question: How bad can someone be for you to still love them?
The roll call of international auteurs who have sweated blood in artistic pursuit of vampires during the past decade is impressive: Jim Jarmusch (“Only Lovers Left Alive”), Francis Ford Coppola (“Twixt”), Park Chan-wook (“Thirst”), Neil Jordan (“Byzantium”), Tomas Alfredson (“Let the Right One In”), and so on.
At this point, even those of you who dug “Let the Right One In” and Jim Jarmusch’s “Only Lovers Left Alive” and Neil Jordan’s “Byzantium” have concluded that nobody can possibly bring anything new to the bloodsucker genre.
Her (2013)
Directed by Spike Jonze
influenced by Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), Let the Right One In (2008)
The visual sheen owes much to cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema ("Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy"), who lights scenes with a bright, polished look that echoes the utopian ideals of so many computer advertisements without overstating their cheap bids at lyricism.
Still, Her pushes some interesting notions and sports some lovely dialogue (I especially liked Theodore's speech about how all future feelings will just be smaller versions of ones he already experienced), and there are some stellar shots that further illuminate the versatility of cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema (whose work here scarcely brings to mind his d.p. duties on Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy or Let the Right One In).
This is all laid out with superb craft (the cinematography by Hoyte van Hoytema takes the understated tones he applied to 2011's " Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy " and adds a dreamy creamy quality to them, so that even the smog layering the Shanghai skyline that sometimes stands in for Los Angeles here has a vaguely enchanted quality) and imagination.
This slightly futuristic enterprise is set in a slightly futuristic Los Angeles, evocatively photographed by Hoyte Van Hoytema ("Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy") and smartly constructed out of bits of the real Los Angeles and glimpses of Shanghai's new purpose-built Pudong district by the directors' longtime production designer K.K. Barrett.
Must you ask? Technically, everything is but a dream, including cinematography by Hoyte Van Hoytema (“Let The Right One In,” “Interstellar,” “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”), production design by K.K. Barrett (“Being John Malkovich,” “I Heart Huckabees,” “Marie Antoinette”), costume design by Casey Storm (most of Jonze’s work) and music (different melancholy) by Arcade Fire and Owen Pallett.
Affectionately snuggling up to Phoenix as he whispers the sweetness of words to “Samantha” or the sweetness of a new letter at work, Hoytema has quickly become one of my favorite DP’s, especially following “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” and “Let the Right One In.” Arcade Fire and Karen O. are simply magic in their music that accompanies our story about love.
At the risk of offending Scandinavian readers by conflating two distinct nations, this Norwegian film reminded me quite a bit of the Swedish picture Let The Right One In, which is a very high compliment indeed.
( Let The Right One In , a cousin of coming-of-age horror, also leaps to mind, though that’s also because this film, like that one, contains some terrible fire effects.)
It also confidently updates and builds on the modern-day, minimalist conventions of Let the Right One In and Goodnight Mommy .
Thelma does indeed look quite a bit like the most famous Scandinavian horror/romance film American audiences are likely to be familiar with: Let the Right One In.
Before that, you have to go all the way back to George A. Romero's 1977 Martin for anything approaching a good vampire movie.
Like George A. Romero's horror classic Martin (1977), this Swedish shocker mixes vampire mythology with adolescent melancholy, and just as the earlier film was rooted in reality by its run-down Pittsburgh locations, this one draws heavily on its working-class setting, a drab suburb of Stockholm.
With a magnetic performance from Saoirse Ronan , a surprisingly excellent performance from Gemma Arterton , and a deliciously peculiar spin on familiar lore, " Byzantium " is a refreshing take on vampires and the most stimulating film on the subject since Park Chan-wook 's " Thirst " and Tomas Alfredson 's " Let the Right One In ."
There are vampire tale tropes — they must be “invited” into houses where they carry out their feeding — and easy comparisons to earlier recent stories in this genre, particularly “Let the Right One In.”
After the masterful Swedish and American adaptations of John Adjvide Lindquist's novel " Let the Right One In ," it's a surprise how well "Byzantium" treads on their turf and extends it even further into the world of grownups.
Culminating with a literal waterfall of blood, Byzantium is one of the most interesting and elegant vampire stories we've seen in the last decade, comfortably joining Let The Right One In , Trouble Every Day , and Thirst as strange and invaluable entries in an pleasingly immortal genre.
The best thing in the movie is Arterton's sultry, claw-baring turn, but mostly it's a rudderless riff on Let the Right One In.
One might rush to compare its teenage romance subplot to Twilight, but in truth, the film is closer in its revisionist spirit to Tomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In .
Dracula's Daughter (1936)
Directed by Lambert Hillyer
influenced Let the Right One In (2008)
Characters
Though the character of Eli has a film history as far back as Lambert Hillyer’s 1936 classic Dracula’s Daughter and Mario Bava’s Black Sunday , Alfredson’s film is less interested in femininity than it is in childhood perceptions of gender.
It's a moody and moving coming-of-age saga, a love story, a wish-fulfillment revenge fantasy and a convincing depiction of a depressed milieu (working-class suburban Stockholm in the 1980s) as well as a vampire movie worthy of being discussed alongside such other offbeat genre touchstones as George Romero's "Martin" (1977) and the still unsurpassed "Vampyr" (1932), also from a Scandinavian filmmaker, Denmark's Carl Dreyer.
Though the character of Eli has a film history as far back as Lambert Hillyer’s 1936 classic Dracula’s Daughter and Mario Bava’s Black Sunday , Alfredson’s film is less interested in femininity than it is in childhood perceptions of gender.
It takes vampires as seriously as the versions of " Nosferatu " by Murnau and Herzog do, and that is very seriously indeed.
[Rating: 3.5 out of 5] Let Me In (Matt Reeves, 2010) Let the Right One In gets something of a tonal inversion in the remake Let Me In, a triumph of imaginative, intelligent adaptation and breathtakingly assured direction; it joins Werner Herzog's Nosferatu and David Cronenberg's The Fly as one of the greatest horror movie remakes.
Vampire movies go back at least as far as the 1922 classic "Nosferatu," so it is not easy to come up with an unexpected twist.
Let the Right One In may be the most lyrical vampire fable since Werner Herzog's 1979 remake of Nosferatu, but it's still got genre in its blood.
Zvyagintsev has compared Loveless to Ingmar Bergman’s Swedish masterpiece Scenes From a Marriage , but along with the inescapable ghosts of Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’Avventura , I found myself equally reminded of Let the Right One In , the heartbreaking chiller from Bergman’s fellow countryman Tomas Alfredson.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)
Directed by Matt Reeves
influenced by Let the Right One In (2008)
Drawing in equal measure from his previous works—rampaging monster flick Cloverfield and the unnecessary-but-serviceable Let the Right One In remake—Reeves strikes a deft balance, allowing the film to transition from a claustrophobic jaunt through a battlefield that evokes Children of Men to a heartbreaking moment of family drama without losing footing.
The director is Matt Reeves, who did Cloverfield and helped turn the Swedish vampire movie Let the Right One In into the overstyled, overly conceptual 2010 remake.
Matt Reeves, whose Let Me In was an evocative adaptation of the Swedish horror film Let the Right One In, delivers both action spectacle and character drama, and he rightfully centers the entire film on Caesar, the noble leader who understands the best and worst of humanity, and has to come to terms with the worst of his own tribe as both sides push for war rather than co-existence.
Reeves , who previously directed the lo-fi sci-fi drama Cloverfield, as well as Let Me In, the superb English-language remake of the Swedish emo-vampire chiller Let the Right One In; he, never allows the movie's scale, colossal as it is, to overwhelm the story.
Reeves has since helmed Cloverfield, in which he tried to find some nifty ways around the usual J.J. Abrams dickarounds, and Let Me In — a gorgeously shot and entirely unnecessary remake of Let The Right One In.
Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema shoots him in a constant state of isolation and worry, harkening back to the way he photographed the young protagonist of the 2008 Swedish vampire film Let the Right One In.
Still, look for “The Fighter” to be a major player at the Oscars, with Adams, Leo and Bale shoo-ins, along with cinematographer, Hoyte Van Hoytema (“Let the Right One In”), who never fails to capture Lowell and its impoverished neighborhoods with a you-are-there clarity.
Russell and his cinematographer, Hoyte Van Hoytema (the Swedish teen vampire romance Let the Right One In), record the thunderous punches and rib-crunching clashes with an authenticity that's visceral, jolting.
Dutch cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema (Let the Right One In) gets high marks for his sensational ability to capture a seamless story with so many engaging elements, including the love of the sport of fighting and family as well as the financial dependability that encapsulates it all.
Props to Dutch cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema, who shot Let The Right One In.
Russell is a consistently interesting director and this is a movie with strong but non-flashy visuals, provided here by cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema, who did such a spectacular job on "Let the Right One In."
Besson, who wrote “Anna” himself, wants the guessing game of where her allegiances lie to appear complicated, but it’s rather elementary, making the plot of John le Carré’s “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” feel like higher-level calculus by comparison.
Looking more like a character out of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, the Brit acting veteran creates one of film’s great dragon ladies—a Soviet-era holdover with oversized brown glasses, Khrushchev-issue suits to match, Margaret Thatcher hair, and a cigarette lighter shaped like a hand grenade.
Captive State (2019)
Directed by Rupert Wyatt
influenced by Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
Visuals
Captive State isn’t just a burst of youthful rage; it’s also a sly jigsaw puzzle with an aha! final shot worthy of the recent movie version of John le Carré’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy .
I’m reminded of the film “ Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy ” when pamphlets were handed out prior beforehand to explain code names, code phrases and other items to know before watching the movie.