Review of Let Me In (2010) by Drake T — 09 Mar 2012
People inherently hate remakes, they feel betrayed that someone has to come along to revamp existing material for a younger or different audience to appreciate, as if implying what they loved was now obsolete. Three words, get over it.
For the record, I watch plenty of subtitled foreign works without dismay (Grew up on Anime) and having taken the time to watch both back-to-back I actually prefer this one over the original for various reasons.
Most notably the way Reeve's reproduction unfolds is more enthralling. It commands a much darker, grittier atmosphere and uses more dynamic camera work where necessary all of which helps the horror aspect of the genre substantially. The cast and characters also feel better represented with Mcphee apparently more fragile and sophisticated accompanied by Moretz who's physically smaller and baby-faced for further contrast to her viscous counterpart form. Even the supporting "bullies" were abundantly believable in their aggressive performance! There are many other changes that I found more agreeable to accentuating the films core relationship (The antagonist to a cop, the symbiotic relationship between her former human and how he related to Owen, Abby's aged writing, love for puzzles, lack of shoes, the immediate combustion and dismissal of her turned victim etc.) but I don't want to drone on.
Comparisons accounted, Let Me In is a masterpiece of poetic romance carefully crafted into a well-told horror-suspense of complete, utter tragic beauty. The dark, monstrous themes are perfectly juxtaposed by the fragile innocence that they're contextualized in making for a very bizarre yet fitting watch.
Reeve's focused and intimate camera work concurs with the character driven storyline completely exposing the raw emotion between the leading characters (Moretz and Mcphee), their relationship often transcends what little relevance this film has to do with morality. It's not really even about the supernatural premise though which serves as nothing more than a vehicle for intrigue, the core is about loneliness, friendship and our capacity to really comprehend the "simplicity" of love.
A much needed addition to the "vampire" movement perpetuated by awful media like Twilight, True Blood, Vampire Diaries etc.
This review of Let Me In (2010) was written by Drake T on 09 Mar 2012.
Let Me In has generally received very positive reviews.
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