My fellow kaijuphiles, I am in need of your advice...

[Mecha74]

Okay, here's the situation.

In case you haven't noticed in the past few days I have been pushing the Swedish vampire film 'Let The Right One In' in both its own thread and my sig. After an online viewing there are two scenes however that have come to my attention that now give me pause that bother me greatly.

The first is a scene where Oskar the 12 year old boy who falls for the girl vampire Eli(who was 12 when she was turned) takes a quick peep at her while she is getting dressed after taking a shower resulting in a brief glimpse of her crotch on screen, (granted it is merely a dummy and not the real thing), the second scene comes later after Eli has just fed and then climbs through Oskar's window. She then strips down naked and climbs into bed with Oskar who is still half asleep at the time and begins a conversation with him, you never see her naked, but I guess it's just the idea of the thing I suppose that I find irksome.

I enjoyed the film, I still do, I thought it was excellent, but I just don't see the point of scenes like these and I guess I find them disturbing. Now I have watched some sick things in the past, I have written some sick things too, I guess there's something about the above mentioned stuff that just pushes my stop button. Who in the Hell would want to see stuff like this unless you were a raging pedophile and just what in the hell was the director thinking?!

I had planned on buying the film before I discovered these scenes, now I am having second thoughts. Damn it, it pisses me off! I really loved this film and now I feel that it is somehow tainted in some manner.

What are the opinions of the kaijuphiles on this matter?

[Zigra]

Meh, while I do consider that bad, I'm more offended by things like some young girl being chopped up by a masked killer.

[Goji Son]

It's not like it was pornographic or tasteless, it was being honest about kids and their curiosity with sexuality. If that makes you uncomfortable there is nothing you can really do about other than accept it or not.

[Zardac the Great]

I wouldn't watch it, but I wouldn't have watched it in the first place.

[godofPH]

Skip button on your DVD Remote?

[Gorjirus]

PH does have the best answer. There is no reason to miss out on a whole film for a few seconds that you find distastesful.

[Guardian7]

Exactly... I skip over those singing midgets in the Mothera Movies and it doesn't decrease my enjoyment of it... I just do a personal edit of the movie (With me --Them singing is like nails on the chalkboard for some poeple, let alone that tandum talking thing they do).

I personally have seen lots of things that are disturbing about all kinds of movies... tid bit "HUH?" momments... remarks...

I have a very close friend who can not watch a Vampire film... ANY... they make him sick to his stomach... he doesn't know why... So at least you can watch the film and skip over the portion that disturbs you... for him... the entire aspect of Vampires disturbs him.

Self edit... or don't watch... Your not going to change the content of the film. It is as it stands. Though I do believe that Goji Son was right about kids and their explorations -- fundimentally if your uncomfortable, I guess you may always be with that particular scene.

That'll be $5 please... lol

Grd7

[Mindfreak]

...And aren't almost all vampires all kinda.... y'know.... "Lusty"?

Wouldn't that make sense?

[Zardac the Great]

I have a story to tell. I'm told it's true, but I can't prove it.


There were some kids who wanted to see a movie in a theater with their friends. It was rated PG-13, and their father had very strict standards, and thus, the children were disallowed from going to the theater. They whined, complained, and begged to be allowed to go, pointing out that there was only a small ammount of swearing, violence, and other things the father considered to be sin.

In the end, the father had his way, and the children went sulking to their rooms. After a while, they smelled a brownie cooking and rushed downstairs. The father had made the brownies to cheer his children up, but warned them that there was a secret ingredient. He told them that they shouldn't worry about it because there was only a small ammount.

The children immediately began begging to know what the "Secret Ingredient" was as the father removed the pan from the oven. As he began to cut the brownies, he relented to their demands.

"The secret ingredient is dog poop. I scooped some up from the back yard. But don't worry. There's not very much."

Understandably, the children immediately lost interest in the brownies.


I think the story is self explanitory, and I think Mecha74 is in this boat.

[Guardian7]

Right... basically don't compromise your own personal principals.

Compromising in a situation like that... isn't going to make you feel any better about a scene that disturbs you.

Grd7

[Gojira2000]

I like the old saying: "When in doubt, do without."

Just reading the discription of those scenes--especially the latter--did disturb me, and gave me personally a mental picture I don't want, much less to see on film. I recommend just doing without the movie. You've obviously reached somekind of limit where red flags are waving, and I say don't do anything that'll leave you with a bad conscience.

This happened to me once, and even knowing that I could 'skip over' certain parts didn't bring me much comfort. I had to ditch it. So... That's my two cents.



PS What the heck is up with a 12 year-old romance, anyway? Couldn't they have bumped up the age a bit? Seriously though, outside of puppy-love and secret crushes that are sure to fade, what is there to do with it? It's certainly not incentive for nude scenes! That seems too young even for a 'coming of age' story.

[Goji Son]

I have a story to tell. I'm told it's true, but I can't prove it.


There were some kids who wanted to see a movie in a theater with their friends. It was rated PG-13, and their father had very strict standards, and thus, the children were disallowed from going to the theater. They whined, complained, and begged to be allowed to go, pointing out that there was only a small ammount of swearing, violence, and other things the father considered to be sin.

In the end, the father had his way, and the children went sulking to their rooms. After a while, they smelled a brownie cooking and rushed downstairs. The father had made the brownies to cheer his children up, but warned them that there was a secret ingredient. He told them that they shouldn't worry about it because there was only a small ammount.

The children immediately began begging to know what the "Secret Ingredient" was as the father removed the pan from the oven. As he began to cut the brownies, he relented to their demands.

"The secret ingredient is dog poop. I scooped some up from the back yard. But don't worry. There's not very much."

Understandably, the children immediately lost interest in the brownies.


I think the story is self explanitory, and I think Mecha74 is in this boat.

Except that the father was being manipulative to the boys, why can't he just let the boys make their own decision on what's **** rather than using a horrible metaphor that conforms to his viewpoint?

And Mecha has already said he really likes the film, minus those scenes. So, he should never watch the film again because of this? Sorry, that doesn't sit well with me. I've never been one for censorship and I've been disturbed before by images in films and books but as long as this particular purpose for the material, then I can appreciate it. I prefer the artist challenge their viewer rather than play it safe.

Oskar is a budding teenager with hormones, curiosity with sex is not going to be abnormal. The scenes aren't gratuitous and is actually much more honest portrayal of pre teenagers and their problems than anything shown on Disney channel. If you can't get past it then that's fine, but if you enjoy the film then why ban yourself from it because of two minor scenes?

[BS Digital Q]

A parent I knew actually pulled what Zardac described in his post. I promptly pointed out how rigged it was, then made lattes for the group as a counterpoint to the ****-infested brownies. Needless to say, the parent gave up and everyone was happy.

[Tokyo VigilanteX]

These scenes, from what I've seen or read from this film (Mostly thanks to M74 bringing it to my attention, I may add), were done for purely tasteful purposes. This is not an exploitative film that's taking advantage of the subject matter to cause controversy for the sake of controversy, as M74 even mentioned a dummy was used for the mentioned shower scene so it's not like the people behind this film paid off the little girls parents or whatever for an actual nudity shot; THAT would be wrong, no matter the artistic motivation.


and since people like bringing up dumb stories; I've got one of my own.

In one particular film of Dakota Fanning, she is filmed being raped (staged, obviously). All of a sudden, bunches of people were up in arms offended that her parents would allow such a travesty to be-fall their own daughter. Dakota's reaction to them can be summed up as "You're all stupid, it's a film and I'm an actor just doing my job".

Simply put, if the actress/actor/parents/agents/Marketing executives/Editors/Studio/any of the hundreds of levels of a film production saw no point in getting rid of a scene, then I've got faith that their hearts were in the right place and that there isn't anything ethically wrong with this scene; especially when concerning a topic obviously cringe-inducing like pre-teen sexuality. Besides, there's no reason to suspect them of creating such scenes for the sake of filling a few extra theater seats since this isn't the type of film where you'd do that, it'd would just be dumb and futile. (Why sit through a dumb child-romance story with ambiance when you can just rent an 80s slasher where boobs and blood abound in droves?)