Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: LET THE WRONG ONE IN [Fantastic Fest 2021 - Virtual]

Finding tone in a film is often a mix of actor choices and style within the director's idea of what he or she is showing. With "Let The Wrong One In" [World Premiere], director Conor McMahon has the sights set on two brothers who are idiots in their own way but when a matter of mythology and life and death hits their lives in Dublin, certain choices have to be made...with a bit of heart and blood thrown in. Eoin Duffy as the bumbling Deco (who in many ways is a slightly more refined version of "Doofie" from "Scary Movie") keeps the pace running simply because the character is too much of an idiot to really understand what he has become. He hits just the right balance from his interaction with a rabbit to his fraught relationship with his bossy girlfriend. Much of the first 3/4s of the movie takes place in a brightly lit house with some flashbacks and it moves quite well. Even the opening salvo really paints the fun the film wants to have. It never takes itself truly seriously but tries to insinuate enough stakes to make it connect.

Karl Rice plays Deco's younger brother Matt who really has to play the straight arrow and gets to do some of the film's more effects heavy sequences (with lots of blood). McMahon uses different approaches from the tool box in practical gore effects which are not uber-refined but creative and, at times, really fun to watch. Anthony Head, who people may know as a vampire hunter from "Buffy" in the States, plays a cabbie-turned-hunter that likes trains. The humor is tongue-in-cheek and Irish enough to make its point while playing with different tropes it is lampooning. Towards the end, the film just becomes silly but that doesn't take away from its charm. While its music budget might be lower than some other major productions, it understands its tone and plays to it without overwhelming the setting. The key point that vampires have feelings but still thirst is a dynamic that when played for comedy is an angle that is not often mined in this way to such avail whether it is looking at pin up posters of girls for the necks or a vampire queen pissed that her hunter/former husband pays more attention to trains than her. "Let The Wrong One In" is a fun farce that knows exactly what it is without being too bogged down in itself. B

By Tim Wassberg