Didim Today

Opening in the UK on November 5th, one of the quicker remakes to hit the screen of late, taking on the cinematic might of success story Let The Right One In, Cloverfield director Matt Reeves’ Let Me In. Let The Right One In is a widely cherished modern classic, a status it has had since its release a couple of years back. An adaptation of John Ajvide Lindqvist’s novel of the same name, this tale of first love which happened to feature a vampire was striking both in its visual styling and in its surprising yet grounded storytelling which lent the film a wistful and somehow dark tone.

It’s a film loved by pretty much everyone writing on this site and indeed it was also named the Film of the Decade on my podcast Cinerama (not that this means anything at all!). Talk of a remake surfaced pretty much as soon as anyone in the US managed to actually see it and along with Quarantine, the remake of REC, is one of the very fastest foreign language – English language remakes we have seen. Cloverfield director Matt Reeves chose it as his follow up project and much cherished English brand Hammer decided to have it be its first theatrically released project since its rebirth, so it does have some prestige attached to it, and this was also helped by the casting of two of the shining lights of child actors today, Kick Ass’ Chloe Moretz and The Road’s Kodi Smit-McPhee.

Fanboy reaction has been negative to the project since its inception though the marketing of the film, and the subsequent positive reviews to have come from its release in the US have silenced some of this. Box office reaction in the US has been negative however so as the film prepares to launch in the UK, the question is: Was there any point to this remake? In Los Alamos, New Mexico 1983, a man is rushed to hospital with severe acid burns to his face. This man is questioned by a Detective (Elias Koteas) but then seems to commit suicide. The film then flashes back to 2 weeks earlier where Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee) a bullied child whose parents are getting a divorce, meets new neighbour Abby (Chloe Moretz) a strange young girl who walks barefoot in snow.

As the two become closer, her “father” (Richard Jenkins) becomes more and more desperate to prove that he is still worth something to Abby by killing locals, draining them of their blood and feeding her with it, as yes Abby is a vampire. Things get complicated though when the killings start to become sloppy and soon Abby has to rely on Owen for the support she needs. For me, the real difference between this and the original film can be surmised by the title. Let Me In was apparently the original American translation of the novel and compared to a title like Let The Right One In, it is blunt, to the point and contains very little in the way of subtlety. In comparison Let The Right One In is a unique and thought-provoking title where you really have to consider what it may or may not mean. Extrapolating this to the two films, I see the differences with the films and by comparison, the real and to me, perfectly clear faults that exist within Let Me In. Before getting to those though, it is worth saying that taken on its own, Let Me In, still works as an effective horror film.

It looks gorgeous, thanks to the work of Cinematographer Greig Fraser, and has solid performances all round, Smit-McPhee and Moretz exhibiting some real chemistry together and not ever falling into the traps that many child actors do. Richard Jenkins puts in a more memorable performance than his predecessor with a largely dialogue free role, his face doing the lions share of the acting, haunted, depressed and resigned to a fate he knows is coming soon enough, and Elias Koteas does decent work as a perhaps too gung-ho detective.

The added elements brought by Reeves’ screenplay adaptation and direction also bring about a few interesting visual ideas, the much talked of car crash from the passenger point of view shot being original and undeniably exciting. Reeves certainly doesn’t piss all over the legacy of the book and the original film and is obviously trying his hardest to put his stamp on the project. While I understand why he does this, I can’t say that he ever brings anything to the mix that wasn’t already perfect in the original or that adds anything to it either. Like I said, the car crash scene is visually interesting, but this and Reeves’ other additions all feel entirely crowbarred in from another film, the very worst offender of this being some woefully misjudged CG that turns Abby into Gollum whenever she attacks, this is an aspect of the film I am very surprised more people aren’t criticising.

In reading up on Let Me In, Reeves made it clear that he was re-adapting the book not remaking the film and in certain moments he has (the mention of Tommy from the original source material perked up my fiancee as soon as she heard it, she having also read the book), but taking the film on a side-by-side comparison, this film, aside from Reeves’ added elements is virtually beat-by-beat the same thing as Let The Right One In, which makes this remake both tonally awkward and also pretty fucking pointless. Next to the quiet moments of Owen and Abby getting to know each other, which are very similar to the original film, then having an action sequence involving a car crash just doesn’t fit right at all.

While this is obviously being done to make it appeal to a broader audience, when you have these moments next to copies of moments from the original film, are they enough to appeal to a broader audience than Let The Right One In, or are you just going to allienate those who have seen the original material anyway? My answer is the latter. It’s worth noting that I saw this film at a “talker” screening, free screenings designed to promote positive word-of-mouth pre-release, but after the film I heard a mix of “the original did this better”, “wow that really dragged” or “that was just too grim”. Obviously there was a mix of people who had seen the original film and those who wanted to see a free film and from what I had heard in the room, the film didn’t work at really satisfying either the audience who like the original or the audience who haven’t heard of the original.

And because of this, when I asked at the start of the review what the point of Let Me In was, I already knew the answer, and that is that there is no point, Let Me In is pointless. It sounds harsh but when questioning why you remake foreign language films, the usual answer is to get it seen by a broader audience. However in combining near arthouse storytelling and bombastic visuals, and also its worth noting a rather heavy handed score by Micahel Giacchino, Matt Reeves has crafted a film that doesn’t really do enough to appeal to either group. It sounds lazy to just say “see the original” but in this case you would be seeing a better made, far more nuanced and subtle film that would stay with you far longer.

After hearing all the positive buzz about Let Me In, I was cautiously excited. I was hoping for a film that could stand up with Let The Right One In as a superior piece of genre filmmaking which can be revisited as much as the original. Instead I got a perfectly decent horror exercise with good performances and nice individual moments. This obviously doesn’t compare in my mind to how I feel about the original film and so I can safely say that hey if you like Let Me In, then good for you. Me though? I’ll never need to watch it again. eatsleeplivefilm.com