Movie Review: Let Me In

HORROR

LET ME IN (Overture)

STARS > Kodi Smit-McPhee, Chloe Moretz, Elias Koteas, Richard Jenkins, Dylan Minnette, Cara Buono

DIRECTOR > Matt Reeves

RATING > 4/5

OPENS > OCT 1

First, the good news: Against all odds, Hollywood did not ruin this remake of Swedish director Tomas Alfredson’s gorgeous 2008 adaptation of John Lindqvist’s inventive 2004 vampire novel, Let The Right One In. Sure, they changed the setting from the Stockholm suburbs to Los Alamos, New Mexico, and the color palette from icy Scandinavian blue to the warm orange-browns of the high Southwest desert, but the story of a 12-year-old boy and the vampire he loves remains very much intact. So intact that one wonders how exactly Cloverfield director Matt Reeves can claim a co-writing credit on this thing. But it’s no mystery why the film was repackaged for American audiences so quickly: Hollywood has never been so creatively bankrupt, and where there’s a nickel to be made on someone else’s idea, a bidding war will surely ensue. In this case, all that pie-eyed opportunism resulted in nothing less than the resurrection of Hammer Films, the infamous U.K.-based horror house that hasn’t released a movie in more than three decades. In the ultimate cult-horror marketing move, Let Me In is the first flick to fly under the Hammer banner since 1979’s The Lady Vanishes, which was itself a remake of a 1938 film of the same name.

But that’s another tale for another time. In Let Me In, 14-year-old Kodi Smit-McPhee (The Road) plays Owen, a junior high outcast who splits his time between spying on the neighbors in his apartment complex, Rear Window style, and getting whaled on by the school bullies. Until weird little 12-year-old, Abby (Chloe Moretz of Kick-Ass fame) and her creepy dad (Jenkins) move into the apartment next door. As it turns out, Abby has been 12 for like 200 years and she lives off of human blood, which “dad” reluctantly harvests for her by picking off high school kids in the local grocery store parking lot. Meanwhile, she hangs out barefoot in the snowy apartment complex courtyard, fiddling with a Rubik’s Cube and encouraging Owen to exact some schoolyard revenge. If you’ve seen Let The Right One In, you know just how gloriously gory and poetic the ending is. If not, you’re in for a treat. Let Me In only rearranges the tale ever-so-slightly, eliminates some child nudity and a bizarre cat attack (the only hokey part of the Swedish film) and—Reeves can actually take credit here—puts a much, much finer point on the truly tragic nature of the relationship between Abby and her caretaker. But do yourself a favor and see the original sometime, lest you think Hollywood actually came up with something this awesome on its own.