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Opening night: “Let Me In”
When Alamo honcho Tim League strips off his suit to reveal a skimpy Viking outfit onstage at Fantastic Fest’s opening-night screening, you have to start wondering whether this might be the wackiest year yet.
League was introducing “Let Me In,” the thoroughly American remake of Sweden’s 2008 independent hit, “Let the Right One In.” League has said he thinks Scandinavia is a hotbed of activity for Fantastic Fest-style films, so he’s making this year a tribute to the Vikings and all things Norwegian and Scandinavian.
League was joined onstage by several other folks wearing Viking outfits as music from Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” blared over the Paramount Theatre, with the lyrics projected onto a big screen. The crowd sang along.
League’s outfit consisted of a Viking vest, a headdress with horns and a loincloth. But you could see black underwear beneath the loincloth, so it wasn’t as risque as it might sound.
He acknowledged that Norwegians might find his ode to their country “mortifyingly offensive,” but that’s what Fantastic Fest is all about. Such are the dangers of becoming a Fantastic Fest icon.
Test tubes filled with green-colored libations were distributed to guests upon entering the theater, and League urged everyone to drink the brew as part of the “oath of the green blood,” a campy reference to yet another B movie that League loves so well.
In another dramatic gesture, League introduced the Texas Boys Choir, which sang an eerie choral interpretation that was suitable for the eerie movie that followed, detailing the friendship between a young boy and a girl vampire.
The movie itself has been controversial, since the 2008 original from director Tomas Alfredson is beloved and screened a couple of years ago at Fantastic Fest. But the crowd loved the new American remake. And League urged the audience to spread the word about its worthiness.
Fantastic Fest is all about enthusiasm. And at least in the case of “Let Me In,” that enthusiasm is justified. The festival runs through next Thursday.
Updated Friday, to correct Norway to Sweden in the reference to the origins of the original, Let the Right One In. Thanks to a reader who left a message.
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