The character referred to as "The Father" (officially named Thomas in "Let Me In: Crossroads") in the American film adaptation Let Me In, and named Håkan in the original novel, and subsequent Swedish film of the same name, is Abby/Eli's human caretaker.
Though it is everyone's natural assumption that he is her father, he is instead more of an employee, and she pays him to procure the life-giving fresh human blood that sustains her. While this sounds like a perfectly agreeable arrangement, the underlying story is far more deeper.
In the American adaption, it is assumed that Thomas protects Abby because he had loved her since he was a child, and had still loved her until the end of his own life.
In the Swedish novel, Håkan, as it turns out, is a pedophile. He's in love with Eli and procures blood for her killing people. However he's got huge pricks of conscience over it and in some point even refuses to continue.
In the book, Håkan was not killed properly after being bitten by Eli before he fell, and so he returned as an undead shell of what he used to be, driven only by his lust for Eli and hunger for living flesh.
Let The Right One In (book)[]
He's name is Håkan Bengtsson. He's 45 years old. He's short, balding and well-built. He likes literature and used to teach Swedish in middle school untill he was dismissed due to his pedophile tendencies. He didn't abuse any child as a teacher, but used to buy pedophile meterials and gossips about it got widespread.
When he got homeless following an arson attack he lost the will to live and decided to die. He got drunkard but some night was approached by a pretty girl. It was Eli. She made him stop drinking and gave him a new sense of life.
Håkan is a conflicted character - he's got pedophile tendencies but tries to resist them. He's in love with Eli and out of the love kills for her to procure blood, but doesn't like it. He's got pricks of conscience over his murders and imagines an alternative universe in which he doesn't kill. He intentionally doesn't kill too young children and in some point even refuses to keep doing it, because states that his love for Eli is unreciprocated. He offers himself to Eli, but she refuses. However he sets off for a hunt once more after Eli promises him to spend a night with him during which he will be alowed to touch her.
In the novel Hakan fails his attempt while stalking young boys in a pool dressing room. He has an erection and ejaculates on one of the benches in his private changing room while watching them over the top of the door. This is evidence Hakan is in fact a pedophile in the novel version; along with his many desire and erotic attempts to touch and caress Eli.
When he was caught, he disfigured his face to make it difficult for authorities to trace him back to Eli. In hospital he wondered to which circle of hell he would be placed. He was sure he wouldn't let to be placed in the circle of traitors.
Håkan ultimately fell to his death after he had allowed Eli to feed on him.
After falling out of the window he becomes a vampire, because wasn't properly killed. He comes back from the dead after falling from a third story window, kills the morgue attendant and then shambles to the suburbs to find Eli. He attempts to rape her but fails and is eventually smashed to a pulp with a shooting trophy by a neighbor boy who is accidentally locked in a fallout shelter with him.
Hakan was a complex and conflicted character. He frequently thought about literature, Socrates and Plato. He hadn't been evil till he met Eli. He had been just a man lost in life and destroyed by society. And even after meetting Eli he wasn't completly evil. There was still some good in him what we can see, for instance, when he refused to continue murdering people. Moreoever all he did was done out of love for Eli.
Let The Right One In (film)[]
Håkan in the Swedish film.
Håkan's pedophilia is not explicitly portrayed in the film, leaving his character in the film to interpretation.
Hakan dies after a failed attempt of blood retrieval gets him caught. To hide his links to Eli he burns his face with acid. He offers his blood to Eli in the hospital and shortly after falls out of the window and dies.
As Håkan hit the ground in the film when he fell from the hospital window, it was shown that he still drew breath, hinting his reanimation, although he was never seen again after that point and no further references to the undead Håkan were made.
In the Swedish film Håkan's plot feels kind of cut: Oskar never asks Eli what happend to her father.
The nature of his relationship with Eli is obscure. He may have met her as a grown man or he may have met her already as a child similarly to Thomas from the American film.
Let Me In[]
He's Abby's companion and procures blood for her out of his personal loyalty to Abby. During the film we see him getting sloppy what finally leads to his arrest as a consequence of a failled attempt of murder. Thomas sets off into another hunt and attempts to incapacitate a young boy, but is thwarted by his colleagues. During the attempt radio plays "I'm burning for you". A couple minutes latter he burns his face with acid. He dies sacrificing himself for Abby.
In the film he seems to repent over his murders. During a conversation with Abby he suggests regretting killing people. Moreover during his first murder he hesitates for a second before cutting his victim's throat and looks at the young boy he's about to kill. His eyes appear to tell "I'm sorry".
In the American film Thomas' plot was slightly expanded relative to its Swedish original. He was portrayed as more human, conflicted character. In the Swedish origial Oskar never asks what happened to Eli's father. In the American film Owen does. Moreover we see Abby's photograph with a young boy learning that she most likely knew Thomas since he was an adolescent. It's likely they had had a romantic relationship.
Let Me In: Crossroads[]
He's one of characters in Let Me In Crossroads, a comic book prequel of Let Me In. In the comic it turns out he's real name is Thomas. He lives with Abby in a countryside. He's got a neighbour - William and they seem to like each other - he refers to his neighbour as "Billy". The comic similarly to the film strongly suggests that Thomas knew Abby since he was a child.
The only sense of Thomas' life is procuring blood for Abby and protecting her. He's not the sloppy man known from Let Me In: he's a highly effective serial killer. He spends nights searching for new victims. In the comic his modus operandi differs from that in Let Me In. We see a scene with Thomas siphoning blood for Abby as he did in the film, yet in most cases he abducts his preys, bring them home and let Abby feed on them. Afterwards he disposes the bodies.
Thomas gets increasingly jealous of a neighbour boy named Jon that Abby befriends. He feels betrayed by Abby for whom he sacrificed so much. His envy leads to tragic consequences: he beats Jon nearly to death.
Thomas shedding a tear while reminiscing his victims.
Thomas and Abby need to leave their home following a confrontation that ensued with a serial killer acting in the neighbourhood. They head towards New Mexico.
In the comic Thomas again was portrayed as a more complex, conflicted character. We see him feeling remose over his murders in several scenes. In one of them he sheds a tear reminiscing his victims.
Trivia[]
- In Let Me In during Thomas' final attempt radio in the car plays "I'm burning for you". This is symbolic, because Thomas was killing his humanity for Abby and in the end he literally burnt his face.