The books take on Hakan, and particularly the scene towards the end of the book was hugely shocking for me coming from the movie. I don't think it would have been filmable and still kept the movie as seriously regarded as it was. But boy, it would have been fun in a 'Tartan Asia Exetreme' kinda way.

I had no problems with the nudity, in fact it did help communicate the same message that the book dealt with explicitly. All of the lines around the idea of 'I'm not a girl' get a good payoff in that brief instant.

OK, so you finally got me to sign up. I'm sure "it's not like that" but seriously, dude, Twitch has "gone gay?" And when you were writing this up last year you lamented the "over saturation of neo goth lesbian bullshit?" I'm not trying to inflame, offend, or threadjack a helpful post, I'm just trying to draw your attention to the fact that your choice of language can be extremely alienating to potential readers.

Thanks for the link, I'm looking forward to checking these scenes out.

Snape kills Dumbledore!

Of course an adaption has always to decide which issues it tackles and which to omit. But the central plot element in this story is a boy falling in love with a vampire who is also a feminine boy. They change his gender into a girl to avoid controversy. Turning a homosexual love story straight. It's not settling for a "central" issue, it's copping out.
What would it say if they changed one of Brokeback Mountains characters into a woman to make it less "complicated". I hope that even you would agree that it would be cowardly and homophobic? I know this is a rather lopsided comparison, but I find such an omission just insulting.

There's no "need" for including anything here, and I understand why they left the basement scene out- allthough I was disappointed, great gore material- and the film makers are free to decide how they deal with the source material. But then I am also free to call them on it.

I wasn't that disappointed with the film when I first saw it, but I got kinda pissed off after I talked with friends who didn't know the book and didn't catch on to what was implied by Eli saying he's not a girl. I thought it obvious, but apparently it is deliberately so vague that for who didn't read the book it could be referring to beeing a vampire, and for the ones who read the book to what it really means.

Thank you Swarez,

I kind of remember there being a kiss after Eli's big reveal but am not so certain. I reed close to two books a week and watch a dozen movies or so, after a while, details get hazy.

But I don't think it's homophobic to shy away from the castrated boy thing. As I said, it adds another layer to the relationship. It's intriguing for sure.

But for me, it never became a homosexual relationship toward the end of book. It becomes something much more complicated. If anything, the book is certainly more interesting than the movie. But as I see it,Eli manipulated and used Oskar. Eli may have the body of a 12 year old, but the mind of someone much older. If anything, Eli is just as much of a pedophile as Hakan. She/he tricks Oskar to some degree.

Oskar does love ELi, but for me, in the book, he accepts ELI as a close friend since ELi is the only one in his world willing to stick up for him, to fight for him.

The whole appeal of the film was taking a story that we can all relate to and putting in some fantastical ideas. A confused 12 year old boy just entering puberty and starting to develop his first relationship with a girl. That's something we can all identify with. And here at Twitch, the fact that the boy is teased and ridiculed at school is something that probably hits even closer at home.

I can hear ya already, well, some of us can't identify with that. Maybe I went into puberty looking at the other boys in class. Or was confused because I had urges but wasn't interested in girls.....

If Eli was Elias from the beginning, I'd think it'd be perfectly well suited, but some lame Crying Game Reveal three quarters in was a bit much.

I just didn't get any impression that Oskar is gay. I think he's desperate for friendship and ELi(as) will use that to her/his own advantage. It's an interesting idea, that Oskar confides in Eli(as) so much he's willing to go along with him, and possibly experiment sexually.

But I'm just saying sometimes, less is more. I don't see the film being the crossover hit that it was if it featured zombie pedophiles (who pay for sex from pre-teens at the local library) trying to rape castrated 12 year old boys. .

I think it's great the film has been made accessible while keeping what matters in tact.

If anything, if you really want to analyze the book, you easily intrepret it as being incredibly homophobic. I'm not going to, just saying.

@Kurt, or Ted Levine in Silence of the Lambs. A part of the gay community was outraged that Buffalo Bill was portrayed as a cross dresser.

Indie. Exactly, I don't think Oskar was gay or thought about Eli as a boy, it was just that he craved companionship with someone who respected him and stood up for him. He is of course sort of disturbed in a way and I addressed that before that maybe Oskar fit the bill of an assistant to Eli because he had murderous fantasies, it also could explain the title of the book, let the right one in on your secret. Eli was definitely manipulating him because she saw that he would do anything for her.

And I think that by excluding the large portion of the pedophilia and the undead monster at the end it made the film a stronger piece, a film that's not easily brushed aside as a just another vampire horror film. I've had friends roll their eyes when I say that it is a Swedish vampire film but it's so much more than that, I don't even categorize it as a horror film or a vampire film because being a vampire is not the central plot or the drive of the film.