REVIEW: Let Me In (dir. Matt Reeves)

Cast: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Chloe Moretz, Richard Jenkins

Fans of Swedish horror hit ‘Let The Right One In’ were understandably anxious to see what Hollywood would do with the nuanced and genre-bending original. And their anxiety probably wasn’t eased by the news that ‘Cloverfield’ helmer Matt Reeves was taking charge. But his remake is respectful of the original while also amping up the horror and the budget for a US audience.

Owen is a quiet, defenceless adolescent who lives in a broken home with his unfocused mother. He spends his evenings staring through his neighbours’ windows or humming advertising jingles on a lonely climbing frame. He gains no respite at school, where he is mercilessly bullied by a trio of tormentors. In a country torn apart by high school fatalities over the past few decades, Owen seems like an accident waiting to happen as he practices stabbing trees with a newly acquired hunting knife. But then Abby arrives, barefoot, in the middle of the night, and everything changes.

Abby is a centuries-old vampire who has never grown beyond the age of twelve. She lives with a man who could be her grandfather, but is in fact a lover who has subserviently followed her all his life, murdering innocent people and draining their blood to keep her alive. Owen strikes up a friendship with Abby, who seems reluctant, but cant help enjoying the attention of someone her own age. They fall into a comfortable rhythm of looking forward to one another’s company (something that most adults call ‘love’, which is much quicker to say) and both are brought out of their damaged and lonely shells by one another’s hapless attempts at courting. But Owen’s tormenters are becoming increasingly violent; and when her old lover gets caught during an attempted murder, the authorities begin closing in on Abby.

Reeves claims to have been attempting a meaningful remake that stood apart from the original and made important comments on Reagan’s America. Well in this regard he has failed spectacularly. But in his heart Reeves knows that this remake has only been financed because American and English people refuse to read subtitles. And in his attempts to hold onto the spirit of the original while filming a ‘Hollywood’ version with recognisable actors and a higher budget, he has succeeded admirably. This is not a ‘shot-for-shot’ remake as many have claimed. Reeves has removed extraneous storylines and stuck to a more manicured style of horror filmmaking that will appeal to a wider audience. He has maintained much of the barren, melancholy aesthetic of the original, but in the moments where brutal, CGI-laden attacks are warranted, he pulls no punches and allows the blood to spritz and the gore to spread.

Chloe Moretz and Kodi Smit-McPhee are superb as the central couple. The greatest triumph of the original film was its ability to tell an adult love story through the eyes of 12-year-old children, and ‘Let Me In’ achieves the same success. Smit-McPhee was a fragile lamb in ‘The Road’, but he has harnessed that porcelain innocence and complimented it with a steely insolence that is quite captivating on screen.

Moretz brings an uncomfortable level of humanity to the character of Abby. She seems vulnerable, and tired of this haunted life. The point of the original film was that the vampire brought happiness to a bullied little boy, but in ‘Let Me In’ it is equally the case that the boy brings light into the world of a fragile and scared little vampire girl.