Twilight vs. Let the Right One In

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When I was fifteen years old, I read the Twilight Saga. At the time I liked the books to a point, they were entertaining but not moving like Anne Rice, Steven King, or Shakespeare. I enjoyed them because they were appealing to my typical superficial teenaged brain. The story is cleshe; it glamorize and butchers the original message of Shakespeare's tragedy and superior work known as Romeo & Juliet. Just like Taylor Swift did with her song "A Love Story" as she sings about how beautiful teenage love is despite the harsh reality. Edward and Bella are the relationship that every teenage girl dreams of, but when awake is not possible to last or even believable. As Edward is that mysterious bad boy girls want to change and Bella being so vague of any personality or relatable making her an easy vessel for the young female audience to in self-satisfactory insert themselves.
But I have seen a similar vampire story recently that does not glamorize young and stupid love artificially. The Swedish film Let the Right One In or otherwise known by its American remake Let Me In. Telling the same story of Oskar/Owen and Eli/Abby that love each other not by their looks, by smell, or lust; their love comes from them both being two outcasts understanding the other. Thus creating believable and relatable love between them. I will not talk to much about the content that I already have; I encourage anyone reading to go rent it as soon as possible.
Both the Twilight Saga and Let the Right One In are extremely similar in story; forbidden vampire and human love stories with reference to Romeo and Juliet. One of them to me is the worse vampire (if you count them as vampires) story of all time especially now that I'm past teenage stupidity. The other being possibly the most beautiful vampire story I have ever had told to me in the cinema medium.

Let the Right One In looks really good and I've wanted to see it for a while. I haven't seen Twilight but I'm as familiar with it as anyone who knows anything about pop culture. Thanks for the positive review of the movie; I'm gonna watch it soon now!

I haven't watched or read twilight, just doesn't look too interesting to me, and the characters don't come across as likable to me from what I have heard/watched/read about them. I did watch Let the right one in quite awhile ago and I thought it was great. I found Oskar relatable and I'd like to see more romances like that.

I read Twilight. It was decent. I saw the first movie...it made me want to vomit blood.

I saw the swedish "Låt Den Rätte Komma In" over a year ago with subtitles. It was AWESOME. I've not yet seen Let Me In but the trailers looked interesting. I read the english translation of Let The Right One In last year....and have been reading it over and over again since. It is a VERY good story. Forbidden love is about where the simularities between the two stories (Twilight and Let The Right One In) end. I LOVE the movie but I HIGHLY recommend reading the book!! ! READ THE BOOK.

Let the Right One wins hands down, so does Let Me In. Chloe Moretz and Kodi-Smit McPhee make Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart look inferior, and Moretz is a PROPER vampire that doesn't sparkle.

While we're at it, can we include the following:
Bela Lugosi
Christopher Lee
Bram Stoker's Dracula - Gary Oldman is excellent as the count.
The Lost Boys
30 Days of Night
Blade
Blade 2
Daybreakers

All said vamp films listed S**T all over Twilight.

The biggest problem with the Twilight Saga is the complete lack of respect to all it's source material; not just to Romeo & Juliet but all vampire literature and films prior to it. Stephenie Meyer doesn't even like the vampire genre; the Cullens being vampires being derived from a dream she once had. While inspiration from dreams is fine she shouldn't have called them vampires none the less. Maybe some sort of demon would have been more tolerable to endure. Strangely it isn't the sparkling aspect that makes me gringe the most it's the "vegetarian" lifestyle. Vampires are monsters first and for most; some vampires are tortured by this but still cannot control their instinct and others embrace it. Either way they are still evil creatures of darkness whether they want to be or not. The Twi-vamps are self-rightious and annouyingly preachy.

I've only watched the adaptations of Let the Right One In. I'm not sure whether I am going to inflict Twilight on myself any time soon...

But I have read both books, Twilight and Let the Right One In. And I'll base my opinions that way.

Twilight was not actually bad as much as mediocre. I felt that the manga adaptation actually made it easier to read because it suited the sort of material Stephanie Meyer wrote. But it's not good either. It's below average. Not abysmal (Atlas Shrugged would be closest to that), but Meyer should try for something more imaginative.

Let the Right One In was disturbing as all hell in book form. Eli's helper (called Hakan in the book) was a paedophile, there was a much stronger sense that Oskar was going to become a serial killer, and there was a far more disturbing secret about Eli than they fact that she was a vampire stuck at the age of 12, a secret hinted at in the Swedish adaptation. And yet, not only was it a complex and fulfilling story, it was also, once you stripped away the disturbing elements, a rather sweet and touching one. You could say beautiful, in a perverse way.

My preference, thus, is firmly with Let the Right One In.

I'd read that her helper was a pedophile, but I didn't feel like it showed that in either film adaptions. I didn't know there was a book and now I deeply wish to read it soon as possible.

Okay, but you'll need a fairly sturdy stomach...

I do, trust me.

Let the Right One In FTW!
{Haven't seen Let Me In, but will.}

The Twilight books and movies can go kiss ass.

That was exactly my point; vampires aren't good guys. They're evil sons of b*****s, but what makes them intriguing whether they're Nosferaatu or Dracula like vampires they can still become sympathetic and likeable characters. The people that are attracted to them shouldn't be stupid teenage girl, they should be characters with the potential or are already just as evil. Yes, Let the Right One In is disturbing but that's where I found it beautiful; anyone can tell the story of two good guys in love but it's rare when people find themselves rooting for two bad guys in love.
Don't misunderstand though please, in reality I want the bad guys caught and put away.

Actually, having vampire protagonists (and moral ones, at that, as long as they are struggling with their natures) aren't such bad ideas. Neither is a vampire romance. I felt it was more about the implications of Bella and Edward's relationship, especially how it starts off in Twilight, that's the problem. He was pretty much a stalker, and she was stupidly infatuated with him. And while the whole concept of 'sparkling' skin was ultimately stupid, I felt it a brave step away from established vampire lore.

As I said, Twilight wasn't abysmal. It was just mediocre and tended to have too much boring purple prose, not to mention a bit disturbing in terms of implications. It's the sort of thing a hormone-addled teenager would like, despite the fact that you can use some editions to beat a goat to death with.

Let the Right One In did things right because Eli was still rather ambivalent towards her own nature as a vampire. She also does care (at least in the book) for Oskar. The book is more about Oskar's character development, though. He moves away from being a potential serial killer at least.

Let The Right One In was the first proper vampire movie I had seen in years, I had to pee halfway through but I endured it because I couldn't look away.

Twilight on the other hand not only misrepresented vampires but my favorite mythical monster, werewolves, aswell. I didn't even pay attention to the plot once I saw the alpaca guy shift into that monstrosity on the screen.

I've never understood that particular criticism of Twilight-
that vampires are "supposed to" be this, and werewolves "supposed to" be that...

as if the entire concept existed objectively outside made-up human fantasy.

It'd be a "misrepresentation" to show chimps in the wild eating hamburgers.
Vampires and werewolves being moral, appealing characters?
That's just one take of many on a human fantasy, which was inspired and altered and changed countless times before,
including in the process of bringing the "original" concepts to life.

Let the Right One In > Twilight.