175) Let Me In
Director: Matt Reeves
Year: 2010
Plot Summary: A bullied young boy befriends a young female vampire who lives in secrecy with her guardian.
As many of the factors that I liked and didn't like in the film are already written in my review of the original, Let The Right One In, I would advise you to read that article before you start this one. CLICK HERE.
While American remakes of foreign language movies are usually a stake in the heart of intelligent, creative and imaginative cinema - just take a look at Vanilla Sky or City Of Angels - Matt Reaves' version of the Swedish cult movie Let The Right One In is an admirable effort. Although it offers little for fans of the original, it's captures the story well for a mainstream audience who would normally overlook such a great motion picture.
Let Me In focusses of Owen, a young boy who is bullied at school, has few friends and whose parents are going through a divorce. Lonely, he spends his time at the jungle gym of his apartment complex where he meets his mysterious new neighbour Abby. Only coming out at night, the two become friends and she helps Owen fight back against his tormenters.
The story remains almost identical to its Swedish counterpart, but there are some very small differences to the way it unfolds that, in my opinion, both iron out some of the faults of the original and sacrifice some of its magic.
On one hand, it improves on the character of Eli/Abby's guardian who, in Let The Right One In, really only served the purpose of providing exposition to the vampire and could have been explored much further. Matt Reeves recognises this issues and, therefore, gives him a sympathetic yet terrifying side that we did not witness in the original. The changes to his murder scenes are among the best in Let Me In and are so chilling that I admittedly had to check the back seat of my car before driving home from tonight's showing just in case someone was lying in wait.
On the other, because it ramps up the suspense and the terror, it doesn't have the subtle nature of its Swedish counterpart. One of the things that always captures me about Let The Right One In was the fact that most of the character's emotions and motivations are left just below the surface. This not only encourages the viewer to analyse each scene for the effects it has on Oscar and Eli but also gives the both movie an honesty and a poeticism that is rarely seen in the horror genre. However, with Matt Reeves' adaptation, he feels the need to bring these subtleties to light, including a scene in which Abby explains the relationship with her guardian to Owen and one in which the latter cries when Abby leaves towards the end.
All around, the acting from the cast is spectacular. The bullies at the school, in fact, triumph the boys in the original and make for truly loathsome individuals while Chloe Moretz captures the complex character of Abby with ease. Moreover, the production design which captures the look of 1980s suburbia is outstanding and clearly very well researched. However, the absolute stand out part of Let Me In is the incredible camerawork.
Aside from some shots are stolen directly from Let The Right One In, this remake uses the camera to great effect. A scene in which a car carrying Abby's father spins out of control is breathtaking and dizzying while the opening shots of police cars racing through the ice and snow are enough to instantly grab even the most sceptic of viewers immediately.
A worthy remake of a great movie, Let Me In is probably the best horror movie of 2010.
3/5
Saturday 6 November 2010
FILM CHALLENGE: 175) Let Me In
Added Jan 6, 2010,
2 comments:
Worthy, eh? That's good to hear. But it looks like it has the same virtues as the original.
Yeah, I mean I would recommend it to anyone who isn't interested in Let The Right One In because it does capture everything about the original that makes it so good, for the most part.
But it's so similar that you won't really take anything new away from it if you've seen the Swedish one.
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