Vampire in the Stockholm suburbs: Let the Right One In and genre hybridity

The article argues that one crucial factor in the success of the Swedish vampire film Låt den rätte komma in/Let the Right One In (Alfredson, 2008) is that it seamlessly merges several apparently disparate genres to create a hybrid form that appeals to widely divergent audiences. A detailed analysis of the film demonstrates how it simultaneously draws on and departs from common themes and motifs of indigenous Swedish film as well as vampire film tradition, combining elements of the horror film, the coming-of-age story and the realistic socio-psychological drama to create a unique mix of the innovative and the familiar. A comparison of critical responses in Sweden with those in the English-speaking world sheds further light on genre-specific expectations and ways the film transcends them. When John Ajvide Lindqvist’s Låt den rätte komma in/Let the Right One In was published in 2004, he declared it to be the first Swedish vampire novel since Victor Rydberg’s Vampyren/‘The Vampire’, published in 1848 (Ordfront 2004). Though this claim may be hyperbole, the horror genre, as opposed to crime fiction, has hardly been a staple of recent Scandinavian popular literature. JSCA 1.1_Art_Wright_55-70.indd 55 11/1/10 11:53:53 AM