DVD Reviews

Let Me In – DVD Review

By Jeff Swindoll Feb 1, 2011, 18:05 GMT

From Matt Reeves – the writer/director of Cloverfield – comes the new vampire classic that critics are calling “chillingly real” (Scott Bowles, USA Today) and “one of the best horror films of the year” (Cinematical). In bleak New Mexico, a lonely, bullied boy, Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee of The Road), forms a unique bond with his mysterious new neighbor, Abby (Chloë Grace Moretz of Kick-Ass). Trapped in the mind and body ...more

The hit Swedish film is given an American gloss, but takes some of the power and mystery out of the film.

If you’ve seen the original then you might have slight déjà vu since the remake follows it pretty closely. That doesn’t mean that it’s a bad film, depends on which one you let in.

Los Alamos, New Mexico, 1983. Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is a lonely, misunderstood twelve-year-old living with his mother in an apartment complex. Mom is drowning her ongoing divorce with white wine and dad has moved on. This basically leaves Owen to his own devices since mom drinks till she passes out. It doesn’t help matters that he’s being picked on at school.

He usually passes the time with his telescope spying on the neighbors. One night he sees a strange man (Richard Jenkins) moving in with his twelve-year-old daughter. The girl is named Abby (Chloe Moretz) and is walking through the bitter cold and snow barefoot, appearing not to be affected by the chill.

The two end up in the apartment next to Owen. Owen and Abby meet one night in the courtyard and strike up a friendship, again Abby is barefoot, smells strange, and is not affected by the cold.

We see that Abby’s father is a serial killer and is draining his victims of their blood. These murders put a detective (Elias Koteas) on the lookout for the killer. Owen begins to discover that there are some strange things about Abby, but that doesn’t keep their friendship from growing.

Let Me In is the Americanized version of the well reviewed Swedish film Let the Right One In (look, no subtitles!) which in turn was based on the novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist.

I know that when I heard that Let the Right One In was being remade for American audiences my first thought was that maybe the first film just should’ve been given a wider release as it was pretty chilling and well made. I’m feeling a bit schizophrenic in this review as I keep comparing the two, but I found the remake in itself very compelling as well. Remakes tend to flummox things up.

The original even had an English dub on video that could have the subtitles turned off, but in my humble opinion also robbed it of some of its effectiveness. That may also be a portion of my opinion of this redo. I had to wonder if I would have liked it more if I had not seen the Swedish original.

A few small things are changed in the remake, but for most part much of it remains the same. One thing I did speculate was that a certain scene would not make it into the American version and I was right about that. It was one that had most folks talking after screening the Swedish original, mostly because of its lack of explanation.

The American version seems to take the easy way out. However, it also keeps much of what made the first film memorable. It’s not really a monster movie; it’s just a movie with a monster that really is about coming-of-age. All that being said the acting is pretty top notch with Moretz and Smit-McPhee playing well off each other.

Let Me In is presented in widescreen (2.35:1) and is enhanced for 16x9 televisions. Special features include a commentary from director Matt Reeves, the 17 minute “From the Inside” making of, the 6 minute “Art of Special Effects,” the 5 minute “Car Crash Sequence Step-by-step,” 5 minutes of deleted scenes with optional commentary by Reeves, a trailer gallery, a poster and still gallery, previews of other Anchor Bay products, and the case contains a limited edition comic book.

For those that have seen the original, you can’t help but keep comparing. It doesn’t help that many scenes seem like recreations of the original film. It does like some of the bite [insert rimshot here] that the original had, but is still a well-made movie. The young American cast goes a long way in helping it.

However, those lovers of the original may not give the film the same slack. Frankly, I expected to dislike it and found a movie that won me over… not that I’ll be letting just anyone into my house.