Love Bites: The "Let Me In" Review

As a general rule, remakes are unnecessary movies. The story has already been done, why do it again? Its cheaper to just stick to the original. Sometimes, though, this can't be done, hence unnecessary American remakes of movies (namely J-Horror) that most Americans won't even understand due to cultural differences. Part of the reason I normally avoid doing a HHMR on a foreign movie (Kaiden being the exception) is because it may not be scary to me because I'm not of that culture. Figuring that I'm not completely out of the loop with movies, I knew that remakes of Let The Right One In and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo were on their ways, and figuring that they're only two years old at most, the question of "why?" rears its head.

To make things worse for me, Let The Right One In is a vampire movie, and I've hated them since before Twilight. So, believe me when I say these sentences: I really did not want to see this movie. But, I am glad I did.

Let Me In is, in fact, a vampire love story. 12 year old Owen is an outcast who is bullied, and normally plays by himself (that is when he isn't watching his neighbors or eating Now and Laters while singing the jingle). While watching his neighbors through a telescope (yes, he has issues, but at the same time, he's going through puberty, and his neighbor is pretty damn hot, not that that isn't any less creepy), he sees two new people move in: an older man and a 12 year old girl named Abby. Despite Abby telling him that they can't be friends, they become friends (and more). What Owen doesn't know is that Abby is a vampire, and her "father" is killing people so she can feed.

While this seems like a schlock plot, it's pulled off surprisingly well. Both children are creepy, but its when we start to see Abby's true colors that we get a sense of how much worse she is than Owen. She's manipulative to her father, but does care about Owen.

This is also done in a stark context to how we first see Owen: as a voyeur watching his neighbors have sex. Despite this, how his relationship with Abby seems purely innocent. One scene, she strips down completely (due to being covered in blood after a major event) and slips into his bed, without him knowing of her nudity (it's not a sexual context, either). When Owen realizes this, Abby asks him if that's "gross" and Owen responds, rather confused by this, "No?" He's confused as to what he's feeling, because while he knows what "most people would do," to him, Abby is more like a very close friend than an object that he sees most women being treated as.

Another stark contrast is we can relate to Owen due to who we see in the movie. Those who have strong emotions for him, both negative and positive, we see their faces. Not once do we see Owen's parents' faces. They seem like vague shadows that are supposed to influence him, but are too caught up with themselves to even notice Owen. It was an extremely good tactic, and it works very well.

On the other side, we see Abby, her "father," and bullies. The bullies are about the only bad part of the film, due to the fact that they seem to pick on him for random things. I still don't know why they were worried about what he was writing when they were teasing him for not wanting to swim, and making him piss himself. You know, that's what I would have picked on him about! You know, if I was a douchebag.

Finally, the important thing: is this horror movie scary. Let me put it this way, I had to "squee" during one scene. I won't spoil it, but let's just say it involved fire and not sparkles. Another has a bloody vampire hugging someone, which comes off as bizarre, and weirdly emotional. While it is scary, it isn't in your face scary. It builds up slowly, and makes you want to see what happens next. Even if what happens next isn't pretty. That's what horror movies are supposed to do. People, take notes when you see this.

Let Me In, while still not a brilliant reason for remakes, is not only one of the best efforts of a remake, but one of the best horror movies of recent times. It's October, and it has actual vampires in it! Stop wasting your time, waiting for yet another Saw sequel, and watch this. You will not regret it.

Over all, I give it 5.5 Bloody Vampire Girls.