Hammer Time/Vampire Flicks: Let Me In (2010)

As part of October Fest back in 2022, where the theme was horror films from other countries, I reviewed the 2008 Swedish vampire film, Let The Right One In. If you recall, while I did say I respected it and felt, if nothing else, that it was a well done, modern day vampire movie, I also didn't think it was the game-changing classic that so many others did. At that time, I had not seen this American version, although I did know of it (I saw some TV spots for it when it was released), and had heard many describe it as one of the English-language remakes of a foreign film that was actually worth seeking out. The fact that it was directed by Matt Reeves also piqued my interest, as I love Cloverfield, both of his Planet of the Apes movies, and The Batman. And, wouldn't you know it, I ended up finding the Blu-Ray for it very cheap at that year's G-Fest, so I figured, why not? Going into it, I also knew that, for all those who praised it, there were also some who complained that, like with most American remakes, Let Me In shied away from certain taboo subject matter and ideas that the original delved into in order to make it more palatable for mainstream audiences. Honestly, I wasn't too disappointed about that, especially since there are aspects of the Swedish version that make my skin crawl, and not in a good way. I was just hoping that, if nothing else, the one would get me more invested in the story and characters, which I always found hard to do in the Swedish version due to its cold, detached approach. And, I will say, I do personally get more out of this film and think it does some things better. For one, I think the characters feel more like human beings, particularly the lead character of Owen. For another, I like how this version streamlines certain aspects of the original's story without losing anything important, and I also feel that it realizes some scenes and roles in the story in a more effective way. Plus, like the original, you have similarly beautiful cinematography of the snowy setting, along with instances of Reeves' own unique brand of direction, I like how it incorporates its early 80's time period much more than the original, and, while it does expand more on certain parts of the story that were left ambiguous before, it still leaves a lot to your imagination. 

But, all that said, this still isn't one of my absolute favorite horror or vampire movies and, like Let The Right One In, I don't see myself rewatching it after this review. A big reason is because it hits a few too many of the same beats as the original, to the point where, if you've seen it, you already know what's going to happen and how it's going to end, which is never good, especially for a remake. (By extension, there might be a lot of repeating between this and my review of the original, so I apologize if you've read that one.) Also, while the original had a few dodgy visual effects shots, that are more here that range from not so great to really terrible, despite the filmmakers' attempts to hide them. But I think the main reason is because, as well done as this is, it still didn't make me absolutely love this story like so many others, and the Swedish does still do some things better.

March 1983, Los Alamos, New Mexico. On a cold, snowy night, a man who has been horribly burned on his face, head, and neck is taken to the hospital under police escort, as he's a suspect in a series of grisly murders. At the hospital, a police detective attempts to question him, asking if he's a part of a satanic cult, but he's unable to actually speak due to his injuries. The detective then takes a call from the nurse at the reception desk, who says the man's daughter showed up earlier. While he's out of the room, the man jumps out the window, falling ten stories to his death, and leaves behind a note that reads, "I'M SORY ABBY." This is just the latest part of a story that's been developing over the past two weeks, one that inolves Owen, a twelve-year old boy who lives in a small apartment complex with his alcoholic mother, who's in the midst of a bitter divorce. One night, while using his bedroom's telescope to spy on those living in the unit across from him, Owen sees a man in his 50's and a girl around his age move into the room next door to his. Despite the frigid weather, he notes that the girl isn't wearing any shoes. At school, he's often viciously bullied by a trio of older kids, and acquires a knife to try to defend himself. While fiddling with it in the complex's courtyard, he meets the girl, who initially comes off as both aloof and strange, telling him that they can't be friends. That same night, the older man goes out, beaks into a local teen's car, abducts him, and, in the woods, cuts his throat and drains his blood into a plastic jug. However, he then trips and spills all of the blood, and after he returns to the apartment, Owen overhears a loud argument, with one of them shouting in an unnaturally deep voice. The next night, he meets the girl in the courtyard again and the two of them begin to bond, as he shows her how to play with a Rubik's cube. He learns that her name is Abby, and as they spend more time together, she encourages him to stand up to his bullies and hit back. Their friendship blossoms over the following days, with Owen learning Morris code so they can communicate through the wall separating their apartments. However, little does he know that she's keeping a monstrous secret, and following the death of her companion, Thomas, Owen learns what it is. Now, he must choose how to reconcile the knowledge that his one friend is a monster that lives on human blood, and decide where his loyalties lie.

One thing that's really cool about Let Me In is that, even though it was shot entirely in the United States, by an American director, and stars a mostly American cast, it's actually a Hammer film, one of the company's first productions after it was revived in the mid-2000's. So, if nothing else, it can be considered a modern entry in a long history of classic horror flicks. In any case, according to Nigel Sinclair, one of Hammer's executives, they were interested in producing an English-language remake of Let The Right One In before it was even released, and acquired the rights at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. They managed to get the Swedish version's producers, John Nordling and Carl Molinder, involved, but its director, Tomas Alfredson, turned them down, saying, "I am too old to make the same film twice and I have other stories that I want to tell." He would on to be quite critical of the idea of remaking his movie in the first place, saying that it's best to remake movies that are bad, "And I don't think mine is." 

Matt Reeves has said that he was also initially hesitant to make Let Me In for that very reason, as he really admires the Swedish film. But, when he read the original novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist, it spoke to him personally, and he contacted Lindqvist and told him that his film, which would he would write as well as direct, would be more of a new adaptation of the book. And sure enough, Reeves did make some significant changes, such as moving the setting from Stockholm to New Mexico, changing the characters' names, making the 1980's setting more prevalent, with the notion of it being Reagan's America being thematically significant, and having certain scenes and character scenarios play out in different ways. But, as we'll get into, he didn't really add anything from the book that was left out of the Swedish film (though, I personally think that was for the better, as I think the book explains too much in some cases), and also used many ideas that were introduced by Lindqvist when he wrote the screenplay for it. In the end, he described his film as, "A mixture of details from the book, the original film and things that grew out of adapting it." And unlike Alfredson, Lindqvist really liked Let Me In and considered himself lucky to have not just one but two well-made adaptations of his book produced.

Like Oskar in Let The Right One In, Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee) lives a pretty miserable life. His home is a small apartment complex in New Mexico where he lives with his mother, and often finds himself caught in the middle of the bitter divorce between her and Owen's father. Also, because she's often drunk, she's typically not there for him. Turns out, he's someone who desperately needs it, as he's violently bullied at school, to the point where he fantasizes about stabbing his tormentors to death. He's so bored and miserable most of the time he's at home, that he uses the telescope in his bedroom spy on the others who live in the complex, mainly a woman named Virginia, who's in an apparently turbulent relationship with a man named Larry, and Jack, Virginia's neighbor, who's all into fitness. This is also how he first sees Abby when she and her "father" move in next door, and he's immediately intrigued by how she walks around bare foot, despite it being frigid and snowy. Their first couple of interactions aren't the friendliest, as she comes out and tells Owen that they can't be friends, and he responds with, "Well, who said I wanted to be your friend?" And the second time, they briefly argue about who should leave when they're both in the courtyard but want to be alone. Owen is also a bit overly incredulous when Abby says she doesn't know what a Rubik's cube is and notes that she smells strange. But the cube is what breaks the ice for them, as he lets her borrow it, and is astounded when, the next day, he sees that she solved it. While Abby still keeps him at arm's length about certain things, and he's a little disturbed by the loud arguments he hears through the wall, he grows more intrigued with her. He goes as far as to learn Morse code so the two of them can communicate through the wall, and she, in turn, encourages him to stand up for himself against his bullies, prompting him to start doing weight-lifting after school. Eventually, things start to turn around for Owen, as he not only gets Abby to agree to go steady with him but, when his bullies corner him during an outdoor gym class, he fights back with a metal rod, splitting open the ear of the main one, Kenny. But, while showing Abby a room down in their building's basement, he tries to make a blood pact with her, which leads to him discovering what she is.

I'm able to find myself getting into Owen as a character much more than I could with Oskar. Oskar came off as extremely repressed and emotionally stunted, and didn't have much of any reaction to what happening to him and around him; but with Owen, you really feel what an unhappy, emotionally tortured kid he is. You see his sadness over how fractured his family is, with his parents arguing and neither of them being there for him when he needs them. Not only is his mom often drunk but, when he's scared after he's

seen that Abby is a vampire and talks to his dad on the phone, he dismisses what Owen is saying about evil as "religious crap" that his mother has put into his head and refuses to listen. The feeling of hopelessness and isolation that comes over him in that moment is palpable, as his eyes well up with tears and he has to agree not to bring it up again, and then, his dad promises to see him soon, even though Owen knows he likely won't. Moreover, while the bullying never gets as humiliating and demeaning as it sometimes 

did in the Swedish version, it's much more brutal and hard to watch, as these three older boys terrorize and assault Owen at every opportunity. The first time we see what he goes through, they give him a wedgie that's so painful that he not only cries but wets himself, which they give him more crap for. After that, it's clear why he feels as though there's no one he can turn to. He never tells his mother of it, not only because she's so uninvolved in his life but because Kenny, at one point, threatens him if he says anything. By the time he fights back against Kenny 

and gets in trouble for it, Owen says nothing in his own defense, having decided that no adult is going to be there for him. Then, when Abby leaves the complex during the third act, Owen, despite having initially feared her, and just watched in horror as she killed and fed on the Detective, is devastated at losing his only true friend. To add salt to the wound, by this point, you've learned he was once friends with an older kid named Tommy, who used to live in his building but has since moved away, so it must now feel like history is repeating itself in that regard.

After seeing Abby's vampire nature firsthand, and then realizing exactly what her relationship was with the man he thought was her dad (and what that could mean for him), Owen is scared to death of her. His fear seems all the more justified when she acts as though she's not going to let him leave her apartment, and she doesn't answer him when he asks, "What are you gonna do to me?" Fortunately, she does let him go, and when she shows up at his own apartment later, he not only feels comfortable enough to allow 

her inside but does what he needs to do in order to stop the internal hemorrhaging that occurs when he doesn't actually invite her in. With their bond repaired, he goes over to her apartment again when his mother, as per usual, is in a drunken stupor on the couch, and the next day, he decides to wait until the sun goes down so she can come out of the bathroom, having made the bathtub into something of a coffin. But then, the Detective's investigating the apartment, and Abby having to kill him, makes her decide she has to leave, which devastates Owen. And like in the Swedish version, it turns out that she may have left him when he's going to need her the most.

While Owen isn't quite as much of an oddball as Oskar, his early scenes do hint at serious emotional disturbance. As understandable as his fantasies about getting back at his tormentors are, shortly after he's first introduced, you see him in his room, without a shirt and wearing a bizarre mask, approaching a mirror while wielding a kitchen knife, and saying to himself, "Hey, little girl. Are you a little girl? Huh? You scared?" Rather unsettling, to say the least, and then, after that, is when we first see his obsession

with watching those who live in the building across from his own. And, like in the original, he looks in on Abby while she's changing clothes in his apartment. But, as disturbing as all that is, I feel that Oskar's obsession with violent crimes committed in his area, coupled with his emotionally stunted, repressed nature, made him feel more unhinged and hard to relate to.

One of the smartest decisions that Matt Reeves made was keeping the origin of the vampire girl, here named Abby (Chloe Grace Moretz), a complete mystery. Like Eli in the Swedish version, all you know about her is that she became a vampire when she was twelve, but when exactly that was is anybody's guess, as she never answers Owen when he asks (they did shoot a scene that revealed it but, fortunately, they cut it). It's possible she doesn't know herself, as she tells Owen early on that she doesn't know when her birthday is. You also don't know where she's originally from, just that Los Alamos, New Mexico is one of many different places she and her "father" have moved to temporarily. Abby doesn't even 100% understand her own nature. She never calls herself a vampire, instead simply telling Owen when he asks, "I need blood... to live," and when he stops her from bleeding out when she enters his apartment without being invited, he asks, "What was that?", and she says, "I don't know." One thing she does know is that she can't get too close to anyone, which is why she initially tells Owen that they can't be friends, adding, "That's just the way it is," and later tries to make him leave the courtyard during their second interaction. But her personal enthusiasm for puzzles makes her interested in Owen's Rubik's cube, and after she manages to solve it within one night, their bond grows stronger. Moreover, when she learns of the torment he's enduring from the bullies, she tells him, "You have to hit back. You have to hit back hard." He says, "I can't. There's three of them," and she says, "Then you hit back even harder. Hit them harder than you dare, and then they'll stop." He then asks, "What if they hit me back?", and she immediately answers, "You have a knife." He next asks, "Yeah, but what if that doesn't stop 'em?", and she says, "Then I'll help you." It's a promise she keeps in the end, when Owen's retaliation causes things to escalate to where it could be potentially fatal, and she arrives to slaughter his tormentors.

One aspect of the character that wasn't brought over from the book and original film is her actually being a castrated boy. Like in the Swedish film, Abby both insinuates and later flat-out says that she's not actually a girl, but here, it's likely meant to be her alluding to how she's not human. You would also initially think that in the original, but then, there's that scene where Oskar looks in on her while she's changing her clothes and you see a scar on her groin; here, while there is a moment where Owen looks in on Abby as

she does the same, and he does see something that causes his eyes to widen, you don't learn what it was. While you could assume it was that same type of scar, odds are that he likely saw either her butt or her front. And even though it was deleted from the final film, that scene depicting how Abby became a vampire would've proven that she was always a girl. This is one of those edgier aspects of the original source material that the film was accused of wimping out on, but I'm glad it was removed, as that shot of Eli's castration scars in the Swedish version always

made me uncomfortable. Plus, there's a practical reason for this change: unlike Lina Leandersson, whose androgynous look made it easy to believe that Eli was really a boy passing as a girl, Chloe Grace Moretz is very clearly a girl, so it wouldn't have been as successful..

Like in the original, you see what a miserable existence being a vampire is for Abby, as her hunger for blood is signified by a loudly growling stomach and sharp pains down there. While you don't see the same signs that she hates having to kill innocent people to satisfy her hunger which you do in the Swedish movie, her anger at the Father losing the blood he harvested could be due to her having to now get her hands dirty just as much as it is over her having nothing to feed herself. She's so dependent on 

blood that she can't eat anything else, as she vomits up the bit of candy that Owen gives her while they're hanging out in town one night. The very sight of blood is enough to awaken her monstrous side, as happens when Owen cuts his hand so they can make a pact, causing her to lick up the blood that drips on the floor. She then has to run out of there to keep herself from attacking him, and instead satiates herself with Virginia, whom she attacks out in the courtyard. Now that Owen knows what she is, she seems desperate not to lose him, leading her to momentarily block the

way out of her apartment. The fact that she doesn't reassure him that she wasn't going to do anything when he asks is rather chilling, and as he leaves, she says, "I told you we couldn't be friends." Also, given the context of Abby and "the Father's" relationship in this version, it seems that another downside to being a vampire is watching someone you love age and die, while you never age, something she's probably experienced numerous times in the past, and will eventually be Owen's fate after the movie ends. 

Speaking of which, like with the Swedish version, I feel that, despite herself, Abby does develop genuine affection for Owen. I think her compassion and empathy towards the miserable state of his life is real, as is her advice that he should stand up for himself, and she clearly likes it when they communicate through Morse code. This likely comes down to how he's the first human connection she's had with someone her own age in a long time. Also, given how contentious her and the Father's relationship tends to 

be, I think she's desperate for someone who's ignorant of what she is and just wants to be with her for her. Reeves himself seems to agree with this sentiment, saying that he felt Abby was testing Owen to see if he's someone who would return her affections, rather than become frightened and run. And, sure enough, he does stick with her even after he knows she's a vampire (I don't know how she was originally planning on breaking it to him), and is also willing to do so even after watching her slaughter the Detective. But Abby, seeing how horrifying it was for Owen to

witness that, and worried that she's getting dangerously close to destroying his life, decides to leave. Still, like in the Swedish version, she senses the danger he's in during the climax and returns to kill the bullies, after which they go off together. However, like the Swedish film, this is not a happy ending, especially for Owen, as he'll either take the Father's place or become a vampire himself; either way, his future will involve him killing people and living a nomadic lifestyle with Abby.

One thing concerning Owen and Abby's relationship that I think the movie is a tad on the nose about, and thankfully, doesn't delve too much into, is drawing a parallel between them, and Romeo and Juliet. While the details of their situation are, obviously, quite different, we are still talking about a pair of star-crossed lovers whose need for each other comes with major complications, to say the least. And though their ultimate fate doesn't involve death for them, it is still far from happy and, as I said, will likely lead to 

tragedy in the future. Not only is Owen having to read the actual play for school, but there's a moment where he's in class and they're watching the 1968 film adaptation with Olivia Hussey. Even some of the songs on the soundtrack have titles based around dialogue from the play. Also, while he initially tells Abby that it's boring, after she agrees to go steady with him, he can be seen reading it more intently while on the bus taking the gym class out to the frozen lake and seems disturbed by some of it, unaware that he's soon going to find himself in a 

similar situation (and, weirdly enough, Kodi Smit-McPhee would go on to appear in a 2013 film version). Again, that's as far as the movie goes with it, and it certainly doesn't hurt it, but it was so blatant a parallel that I did kind of roll my eyes. It just tends to annoy me whenever filmmakers feel they have to make something so obvious to the viewer.

While there wasn't much of a physical change in Eli when her vampire side took over, save for her eyes becoming an unnatural color, Abby's is a bit more pronounced. Not only do her eyes become inhuman, but her flesh becomes grossly pale (it's also possible that, when she kills the bullies at the end, she's taken on an even more monstrous form that we're not seeing). Like Eli, she also lets out inhuman snarls and growls, as well as blood-curdling shrieks, and her voice becomes unnaturally deep when she speaks 

like this. When her hunger takes over, she proves to be really ferocious when she attacks her prey, with her supernatural strength enabling her to overpower and throw around adults who are twice her size, and when she bites into their throats and feeds on their blood, she looks like a wild animal. However, unlike Eli, who showed some remorse over killing her first onscreen victim, Abby comes off as more ruthless, as she breaks Jack's neck when she sees that he's still alive after having fed on him (no doubt that was to 

keep him from becoming a vampire as well, but she likely did it in order to cover her tracks rather than out of sympathy). Moreover, when Larry comes to Virginia's aid when Abby attacks her, she puts up more of a fight when he pulls her off, while in the Swedish version, Lacke is able to easily kick Eli off of her (though, like Eli, Abby doesn't attack Larry in retaliation; she just snarls at him before running off). And while Eli left one of the bullies alive following the climax, Abby slaughters all of them. Her vampire nature also gives her unnatural speed and agility, as 

she's able to scale the side of a building, climb a tree in the complex's courtyard, and jump a fence when fleeing the scene after attacking Virginia. She can go around in the snow bare foot (something that Moretz actually did during filming) as well, as it keeps her from feeling cold. And while, in the Swedish version, Eli half-jokingly implies that she's able to fly, here you sometimes hear what sounds like wings fluttering from offscreen, like when Abby appears to leap off the hospital's tenth floor ledge and when she's attacking the bullies, suggesting she can sprout them at will.

Like Let The Right One In, this film applies some traditional vampire tropes while ignoring others. Despite her seemingly being able to sprout wings, Abby doesn't seem to be able to become a bat or any other type of animal; crosses are never used to repel her and neither is garlic; and no one attempts to stake her through the heart. However, we also don't see if she would be immune to bullets, as is often the case in vampire stories. The most notable tropes that are retained is how anyone who's bitten and survives 

becomes a vampire as well, their being vulnerable to sunlight (just like in the Swedish version, the windows in Abby's apartment are covered up and she sleeps in the bathtub, under various blankets), their having a human servant who performs various tasks for them, and, naturally, their needing to be invited into a dwelling. While nothing new is done with the latter, one thing I forgot to mention regarding it when I reviewed the original version is that it seems as though, in this case, a vampire needs to be allowed entry every single time, whereas in other stories, they

only require it for the first time. But, one thing I just now realized is that, in both versions of this film, she goes into the hospital's main lobby and talks to the head nurse without being invited in, but when she climbs up to the room where her companion is being held, she can't come in because he's unable to actually let her in due to his face being burned.

Unlike Hakan, his counterpart in the Swedish film, who was as much of a mystery as Eli, Richard Jenkins' role (he's credited as "the Father," though a comic series based on this film named him "Thomas,") as Abby's adult companion, is much more fleshed out. Notably, it's revealed very late in the movie, near the end of the second act, that he's somebody who Abby met when he was around her physical age and, through some unknown circumstances, became her friend and guardian, growing old over the years while she remained twelve (this is something that's been speculated about Hakan in the Swedish film but is never given a clear answer, and is not his backstory in the book). Like Hakan, his main function is to go out, murder people, and harvest their blood for Abby. His modus operandi is to break into an intended victim's car, wait in the backseat, and jump them when he gets the chance, all while wearing a garbage bag over his head as a creepy-looking, makeshift mask. However, shortly after they arrive in Los Alamos, he kills a local high school graduate named Scott and harvests his blood, only to take a bad step and end up dropping the plastic jug he funneled it into. While he does find it, much of the blood has poured out, and he has to flee the scene due to an approaching police car. When he returns to the apartment empty-handed, Abby is furious, yelling at him loud enough for Owen to hear through the wall. He tells her, "Maybe I'm getting sloppy. Maybe I want to get caught. Maybe I'm just tired of this," which prompts her to storm out of the room. The following night, when she kills Jack, it's now the Father's turn to be furious, reinforcing his growing fatigue and disdain for having to do her dirty work. Again, Owen hears yelling through the wall, and while it's muffled, if you listen, you can hear the Father yell, "You did it again!", and, "I have to clean it up!", followed by, "Shit! Oh, you fucking bitch!" The door slams loudly, and when Owen looks out his bedroom window, he sees the Father stomp through the courtyard, search his pockets for his keys in agitation, and then head into the nearby woods, cursing up a storm. There, he disposes of Jack's body by tossing it into a stream.

Despite their fracturing relationship, there is still some affection between Abby and the Father. As he's again preparing to go out and harvest blood for her, she tries to diffuse the lingering tension by softly touching him, and he responds by allowing her to touch his face and putting his hand on hers. But he also shows that he's growing jealous of Owen, saying, "Please don't see that boy again. Okay?" However, Abby doesn't answer, and emphasizes the point by pulling her hand away from his. Angry at this, he

heads out, and this second attempt to harvest blood goes even worse, resulting in him getting trapped in a car that falls into a ditch and flips over. With no way to escape, he burns his face with a container of sulfuric acid to keep himself from being identified, leading to his hospitalization, which the film opens on. Though he's unable to speak, the detective investigating the murders tries to get him to communicate through a pad and pencil. But when he's then left alone, he writes the message, "I'M SORY ABBY," on the pad, still thinking of her and worried

that they're going to find out about her. That's when she shows up, having heard of what happened over the radio, and while he gets out of bed and opens the window for her, he's unable to actually invite her in. Abby is in tears at the sight of him, reinforcing that notion that there is still affection between them. In fact, his allowing her to feed on his blood, then dropping out the window and falling ten stories to his death, could also be seen as such, as he's allowing her to go on without him.

Because part of this scene is what the movie opens on, one of the first characters you meet is Elias Koteas' Detective. Though you may initially think he's going to be a major character, his role in the story is very minor, to the point where you don't even learn his name. He believes the murders are the work of a satanic cult, and when he tries to talk with the Father at the beginning, he asks him if he's a satanist and if there are others he's working with. The man's reaction to his questions, particularly when he asks, "Is there somebody you wanna tell me about?", makes the Detective think he's on the right track, but before he can learn anything, he has to take a call from the nurse at the front desk. By the time he's talked with her, the Father has dropped out of the window. Despite this, the Detective does eventually trace him and his "daughter," whom the nurse told him about, to the apartment complex. Though he doesn't get an answer when he knocks on Abby's apartment door, after she attacks Virginia, putting her in the hospital, he interviews Larry there the next day, asking him about his description of Abby. He also shows him a drawing of the Father, telling him that he's the suspect in the murders and asks if he had a daughter akin to the girl who attacked Virginia. Again, he tells Larry that they believe Abby and the Father are involved in a cult. But, in the middle of their talk, a nurse exposes Virginia to sunlight and she bursts into flames, something the two of them witness. The Detective heads back to the complex the next day and breaks into Abby's apartment when he hears sounds that someone's in there (Owen, causing a board in the floor to creak). Poking around the dark apartment and removing the material covering the windows, completely unaware that Owen is in there, hiding from him, he eventually finds Abby as she's sleeping in the bathroom. Owen stops him before he can rip everything off the bathroom window, but that gives Abby the opportunity to jump the Detective from behind, and she overpowers and feeds on him.

In Let The Right One In, Oskar's mother came off as stern and overprotective of her son, but they still had something of an actual relationship; here, Owen's mother (Cara Buono), despite being nice and loving to him for the most part, is often seen drinking over her ongoing divorce from his father, John, and whenever Owen needs her, she's passed out. For example, during one of Owen's first scenes, he and his mother are settling down for dinner, when she gets into an argument with John over the phone. In the next scene, the sink is full of unwashed dishes and she's lying on the living room couch, crying. She's also so absent from her son's life that she knows nothing of the bullying he goes through, and just takes everything he says, including the obvious lies, at face value. In fact, this notion of absence is reinforced by the cinematography: except for one brief moment, you never get a clear look at her face, as it's either out of focus, out of frame, or, as you can see here, she's far in the distance. However, that's more than I can say for John, who never appears onscreen, and whose voice you only hear in the scene where Owen tries to talk with him on the phone (Elias Koteas provides his voice). While he does seem to love his son, like his mother, he's not there for him, be it during the weekends, when Owen is supposed to be with him (it seems like he has a mistress, given what Owen's mother says during one of the phone calls), or in that moment, where he refuses to listen to him and writes off his questions about evil as religious junk that his mother put in his head. He doesn't even react to Owen's sobbing, which anybody would be able to hear.

While the kids who picked on Oskar in the Swedish version seemed to be around his age, Owen's bullies are older and bigger than he is. The main one, Kenny (Dylan Minnette), doesn't just pick on him, as he and his friends are seen annoying this girl while they're in the pool during gym class, but he does seem to be the main target. Kenny is just obsessed with making his life miserable. He constantly emasculates him by referring to him as a little girl, and often physically attacks him, like when he smacks him in the face 

with a towel in the locker room, before he and his friends pin him down and give him the painful wedgie. And when he won't give him the Morse code he wrote down in class, Kenny furiously smacks him with a pointer, even slashing him across the cheek with it. Though they took part in giving him the wedgie, Kenny's friends, Mark (Jimmy Jax Pinchak) and Donald (Nicolai Dorian), are sometimes taken aback with how fixated he is on Owen, even when someone could see them. That's especially true of Donald. When Kenny slashes Owen's face, he exclaims, "Jesus Christ, dude!... You explain that to his mom!" And when Kenny threatens to throw him into the icy water, Donald warns him that their gym teacher, Mr. Zoric, is watching. But Kenny doesn't care, as he often succeeds in intimidating Owen into submission, like when he tells him not to say anything to his mom about the slash across his face, and tries to do the same when they're at the ice pond. However, rather than give him the metal pole that he found (which Kenny threatened to sodomize him with), Owen whacks Kenny in the left ear with it when he lunges for him, splitting his ear wide open (it's so satisfying to see him fall to the ground, crying in pain), and causing him to be sent to the hospital.

Like in the Swedish film, the main bully's older brother (Brett DelBuono), who's named Jimmy in both, proves to be far more sadistic when, during the climax, he forces Owen to stay underwater in the pool for three minutes, threatening to stab one of his eyes out with a knife if he doesn't do it. He then holds his head underwater, intending to keep him there the entire time, to the point where even Kenny begins to feel this is going too far. In fact, Jimmy may have actually been intending to kill him, regardless. The film also uses Jimmy to add some context to why Kenny is so cruel towards Owen, as it's clear that he himself is bullied by his brother. Jimmy's first scene is when he manhandles Kenny after he's had his ear split open and mocks him for it, then demands that he give him his keys. When he gets them, he pats him on the head and says, "See ya at home, little girl," the same insult that Kenny throws at Owen. Right then, it's clear that Kenny bullies Owen to get back the power that he doesn't have most of the time, and adds a new dynamic to when he's trying to keep Jimmy from drowning Owen and Jimmy furiously yells at him to shut up. But, of course, that proves to be a moot point when Abby shows up and cleans house.

Three other local people get caught up in the madness, but unlike their counterparts in the Swedish movie, their roles here are very minimal, despite their now living in the same apartment complex as Owen and Abby. One of them, Jack (Chris Browning), is first seen working out in his apartment when Owen is spying on his neighbors, and he's out for a jog one night when he comes across Abby in a tunnel, acting like she's homeless and injured. Jack, being compassionate, asks her what's wrong and where she

lives, and when she asks him to carry her, he obliges... and that's when she attacks and feeds on his blood. Later, the Father has to dispose of the body, but it eventually turns up at the ice pond. Two other neighbors, Virginia (Sasha Barrese), who, like Owen's mother, you rarely see up close, and Larry (Dylan Kenin), appear to be in a rather contentious relationship, as they're often fighting. In fact, they're in the middle of an argument when Abby attacks Virginia in the courtyard, biting into her neck but failing to kill her due to Larry's interference. This

leads to her becoming a vampire and, in the hospital, while Larry is being interviewed by the Detective, she bites into her own arm to feed on the blood they gave her through a transfusion. That's when the nurse comes in, opens the curtains, and the sunlight causes Virginia to burst into flames. Larry tries to rush in and help, and the Detective has to hold him back, as the flames are so powerful that they engulf the nurse, and a news report later says the fire department spent much of the day trying to put them out.

Like Let The Right One In, Let Me In is very visually pleasing, and a lot of that, again, has to do with the snowy, wintertime setting. You don't get as many starkly white, wide views of the countryside as you do in the original, and the daytime exterior shots aren't quite as beautiful as they were there, instead often having a kind of miserable look to them. But there are still plenty of memorable and lovely images to be found here. These range from nice-looking shots of the apartment complex's courtyard, like when Owen is first introduced and when he meets Abby as 

she stands on the jungle gym, to eerie but beautiful-looking nighttime scenes in the nearby woods, like when the Father drains Scott of his blood, with the only source of light being his lantern, and when he disposes of Jack's body at a spot where a small bridge spans over this stream, and appealing, wide views of various locations, like the high-angle, nighttime shot of the forest that opens the movie, similar shots of some locations in town, and the exteriors of the hospital when Abby climbs up to the Father's room. I also really like the color palette, with the icy blues 

and soft greens for some nighttime exteriors, as well as the late night scenes in the hospital, and this amber color from the lights that illuminate the apartment complex's outside and the courtyard, and which you also have in the warm, comfortable interior settings. There are some scenes that do have a vivid white feel, such as when you first see Owen in the courtyard out in the daytime and him walking to school after he sees that Abby solved the Rubik's cube, and the scene with the gym class outside even has some bits of 

sunshine to it, but for the most part, the colors tend to feel a bit muted and the lighting mostly dim, both of which work really well for this story. However, I have to say that I don't quite get that absolutely frigid feeling that I did from the original. It's obviously cold as all get-out, especially when it's the dead of night, but it never gets into my bones the way that one did, probably because this one wasn't filmed in Sweden.

While it's certainly not bombastic and does have its fair share of quiet moments, as well as many instances of hushed dialogue, Let Me In is much more dynamically shot and edited than the Swedish version, with Matt Reeves' direction tending to be much bolder and more overtly cinematic. He establishes it right from the get-go, with the opening shot of the woods during a nighttime snowfall, which slowly zooms in towards the lights of the ambulance transporting the Father, as well as of its police escort. When it cuts to the inside of the ambulance, we never 

get a good look at anyone's face, and the chaos going on in the back, as the paramedics attempt to treat him, is portrayed only through a montage of shots that are either out-of-focus or obscured. When the Detective talks with the Father at the hospital, you still don't see his face, with the only glimpse of his hideous condition being a shot of his burned hand, and there are also close-ups of the Detective's face that, if you look closely, you can tell are shot through the man's badly damaged vision, which blurs at one point. This kind of direction, giving the viewer only bits and 

pieces, is repeated in the scenes with Owen's mother, whose face, again, you virtually never get a clear look at; when Abby visits the Father at the hospital, as his horribly burnt face is kept obscured until he opens the window; and when Owen spies on his neighbors with his telescope, both during that first night and when the police investigate Jack's death, with both scenarios taking a lot of inspiration from Rear Window. Speaking of the latter, these kind of voyeuristic shots from Owen's POV continue when 

Abby and the Father first arrive, as he watches them through the window when they're carrying a trunk into the building, then through his apartment door's peephole and out around its edge to watch them as they move in next door. Then, the following couple of nights, he hears the muffled sounds of their arguments through the wall, and when it cuts to the other apartment's interior during the first, Abby's monstrous form is kept offscreen when she shouts at the Father

over losing the blood, with her unnaturally deep voice being the only indication that she's not what she seems. And the following night, Owen sees the aftermath of their second fight when the Father stomps out of the building to go dispose of Jack's body.

Reeves also proves that he knows how to shoot things in order to generate suspense. When the Father breaks into Scott's car, the camera stays on one shot filmed from the backseat, as Scott comes out of a store, gets in, and starts to drive away. That's when the Father sits up in the back, and it switches to a shot where we see him sitting directly behind Scott, who's unaware of the danger he's in. He comes to a railroad crossing and it cuts to a shot of the front of the car, which periodically turns red from the stop's blinking lights as the camera slowly pushes in, while he still doesn't

notice the Father behind him. That's when he finally attacks, only for the train to come by and obscure the shot, and the film then switches to a shot from the car's rear, as the train goes by and it remains there in front of the now empty tracks, not moving. Similarly, when the Father tries to obtain another victim later on, again attacking from the backseat of a car, it cuts to a shot from inside a gas station where the victim's friend stopped and you can see him struggling with the Father in the front seat through the window, while

both his friend and the cashier are completely oblivious. And when Jack heads into the tunnel where he encounters Abby, it's also shot in a very suspenseful manner, cutting back and forth between a shot in front of him and one from his POV as he walks through the dark tunnel and sees her sitting near the other entrance. This tension is accentuated by the knowledge from the previous scene that Abby is now desperate for blood and on the prowl.

Going back to the Father's fateful second attempt at harvesting blood, that entire sequence serves as a great example of something that Alfred Hitchcock was good at: making you feel anxious for the villain, rather than because of him. When the Father breaks into his intended victim's backseat and lies in wait, things become more complicated when the guy decides to give a friend of his a lift. The friend, after getting into the passenger seat, throws his bag into the back, onto the Father's feet, and then scoots the seat back, squeezing him while he lies in the floorboard. 

He then has to just lay there and wait for an opportunity to escape, yet he obviously doesn't know where they're going. Fortunately for him, they don't go too far before they stop at a gas station, and after he hears the door open and shut, he lies there for a few seconds, not knowing whether or not both of them got out. He peeks around at the key, as it hangs in the ignition, and then realizes the friend is still in the car, as he sees his hand come in and turn the key so he can listen to the radio. He grabs a cigarette but

can't find a lighter, so he looks in his bag in the back, and sees the Father lying in the floorboard. That's when he has no choice but to attack, and the two of them struggle, while the initial target is inside, oblivious to what's going on. And just as he's about to walk out of the station, he runs into some other friends and stops to talk with them, still unaware that his one friend is fighting for his life just a few feet away. The Father uses some kind of drug to incapacitate him and, once he's unconscious, attempts to drive away.

That leads into the movie's most elaborate sequence, as the Father's attempt to escape results in a bad car crash, and it's seemingly filmed in one shot, from the backseat. You see him go in reverse, as the intended victim and his friends chase after the car, throwing a slushie on the windshield; he goes into the street, in front of oncoming traffic, and tries to avoid a car coming at him; he just barely misses another vehicle coming at him from the right, but then hits a pole and is sent tumbling off the side of the road, with everything in the car, including the other kid's body, 

getting flung around; and he finally comes to a stop, with the car now lying on its roof. As you can likely guess, this, in reality, required some extensive visual effects work to pull off, and it makes for a memorable and well done sequence, reminiscent of some moments from Cloverfield, as well as foretelling similar sequences Reeves would do in future movies (like in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, when Koba takes command of a tank during the attack on the human compound). It also, in and of itself, exemplifies how different Reeves' approach is from 

Tomas Alfredson's. He does shoot some moments in a similar fashion to the original, like when Owen first meets Abby in the courtyard, the exterior of the hospital as Abby climbs up the face of the building, and the final scene on the train, but other moments are done in a more theatrical manner. While, in the original, Eli's attacking Jocke beneath the bridge was mostly done in one shot, here there's a lot more editing as he finds her, tries to help, and she takes the opportunity to tear into his neck and feed on his

blood. The same also goes for Abby slaughtering the bullies at the end, which is now done very dynamically, with the bullies' reaction to her arrival being shown, followed in rapid succession by Owen hearing some of the attack from below the water's surface, a close-up of a severed head falling into the water and sinking in front of him, while one of the bullies is dragged along the surface from one end of the pool to the other (while being held upside down), and a quick shot from below Owen, as more carnage

occurs above, with body parts fall into the water around him. And while, in the original, Oskar passed out and Eli pulled him out of the water, here Owen climbs up out of the pool himself, as you hear the ongoing slaughter from offscreen. However, like in the Swedish version, you still only get glimpses of what Abby did to them, leaving much of it to your imagination.

The film was shot entirely in New Mexico, mostly in Albuquerque, but also in the actual county of Los Alamos, and they did film in the wintertime, so the snow, ice, and feeling of cold is very real. While, as I said, I don't find it to be as palpable as in the Swedish film, the cold is still very much a part of the story, adding to the mood and atmosphere, and the locations and settings, such as the snow-covered woods, the icy lake and river, and the various spots in the town itself, are all memorable in their own ways. Los Alamos, as a whole, is depicted as a typical small American

town, full of people ranging from working class to upper-middle class, and you see a bit of its seedy and not so flattering underside, with the cruel bullying at the local school and Owen's ongoing plight with his parents' bitter divorce. He flat-out tells Abby that he hates living there, that everyone is stupid, and one day, he's going to leave and never come back. After the locations that play the biggest parts in the story, the place in town we see the most of is the local hospital, with its bland, clinical interiors and

hallways, the rooms where both the Father and Virginia briefly stay, and the nurse's station down in the lobby. There's also this little pharmacy that Owen tends to frequent, which is where he buys some of his favorite candy, as well as gets his knife, early on. It also has some arcade games and is where he takes Abby while he's showing her around the town.

Like the Swedish version, much of the story is set at the small apartment complex, which is a pretty unassuming place and has the one distinguishing feature of a jungle gym in the center of its courtyard. The apartment where Owen lives with his mother is nothing fancy, clearly the home of a middle class family, but it's not as bland-looking as it is in the Swedish film. The most notable room here is Owen's bedroom, which is always dimly lit and has a telescope pointed out the window, at the building across from his, while his bed is up against the wall

separating his apartment from Abby's, which is decorated with a painting depicting what looks like a sky with clouds rolling through it. Abby's apartment, on the other hand, has barely any furnishings, with junk on the living room floor like the trunk they brought with them, a cardboard box full of trash, a sleeping bag, and random money; a table where, among other things, various keepsakes from their past victims are kept; a mattress in one room that's up against the wall, with Owen's bedroom on the other

side; a bathtub that's been made into a makeshift bed for Abby; and cardboard covering all of the windows in order to block out the sun. And down in the building's basement is a space that's basically an old rec room, with a couch, a table and a lamp next to it, and a dartboard on the wall, among other things. Owen tells Abby that this is where his friend Tommy used to hang out and smoke pot with his friends, and when they weren't around, the two of them would spend time down there. This is also where they hide the detective's body after Abby kills him (she seemingly tore open a hole in the wall and put him in there).

The other major setting is the school, much of which was the actual Los Alamos High School. It's a pretty typical school, with the bland, unassuming look to its interiors, but what makes it significant are the major scenes that take place there. In this large assembly room, the Detective addresses the students following Scott's murder and assures them that the police department is doing everything possible to keep them safe; one of the classrooms is where Owen writes down the Morse code he uses to communicate with Abby; the boys restroom is where he's confronted and

injured by Kenny when he won't give him the Morse code; and, most significantly, the pool and locker room are not only where the first major instance of bullying takes place, but it's also the setting for the climax, where Owen is nearly drowned by Jimmy, and Abby keeps her promise to be there for him when he needs her.

In my review of Let The Right One In, I talked about how, initially, I didn't know it took place in the early 80's. Not only are there no captions that tell you when it's set but, save for some very minute, fleeting details, there's nothing in the movie itself that says as much, and even then, the time period has no bearing on the story. That's not the case with Let Me In. The first thing you see after the title is a card which tells you the setting is Los Alamos, New Mexico, in March of 1983, and during the first scene at the hospital, you see President Reagan giving an address on a little TV

set at the nurse's station. You also see classic arcade games, like Ms. Pac-Man, Gorf, and Space Wars, in that pharmacy; there's a shot of that classic PSA, "10 PM. DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR CHILDREN ARE?", on a TV screen; you hear a handful of 80's era songs on both the soundtrack and in the movie itself; and see various types of vehicles, technology, and clothing you'd expect from the period as well. There's also a feeling of the Satanic Panic that was especially prevalent during that time, given how the Detective and the police department at large believe the Father and Abby are part of a cult. 

Most significantly, the address that Reagan gives at the beginning is his "Evil Empire" speech from March 8th, 1983, where he put all the blame for the Cold War and the nuclear arms race on the Soviet Union. Matt Reeves said he felt it was important to the story in that it served as a perfect symbol of where the United States was at that point, with this mindset that all the evil in the world was centered somewhere else and yet, here we have these gruesome murders being perpetrated in a small American town, with the cause behind it being an honest-to-God vampire.

Moreover, there's other horrible stuff, like vicious bullying, happening here, and it's led to a kid as young as Owen contemplating stabbing his tormentors to death, but no one knows or seems to care. It's very telling how, during the aftermath of the Father falling to his death from his 10th floor room at the hospital, Reagan, whose image on the TV is reflected in the hospital's main doors, can be heard saying, "There is sin and evil in the world, and we're enjoined by Scripture and the Lord Jesus to oppose it with all our might. Our nation, too, has a legacy of

evil with which it must deal. The glory of this land has been its capacity for transcending the moral evils of our past. Alexis de Tocqueville put it eloquently after he had gone on a search for the secret of America's greatness and genius, and he said, 'Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the greatness and the genius of America. America is good. And if America ever ceases to be good...'" The audio then suddenly cuts off, as the movie cuts to

black and transitions to the first scene with Owen at the apartments. That, along with the Satanic Panic allusion, also ties into something of an evangelical Christian motif you see in the film, given how Reagan's speech was done at a convention for the National Association of Evangelicals, Owen's mother is overly religious (when Owen takes some money from her purse for his night on the town with Abby, there's an image of Jesus Christ taped to her vanity mirror, seemingly watching and judging him), and it results in his father not listening to him when he calls him up to ask him about the existence of evil after he feels he's just witnessed it firsthand.

As I've gone into throughout the majority of this review, I feel there are various things that Let Me In does better than its Swedish counterpart, such as the main character of Owen, the nastiness of the bullies, and the use of the 80's time period. I also think the Father's modus operandi of breaking into his victims' cars and lying in wait in the backseat, with that garbage bag mask, is a more interesting way of going about it than the mundane way in which Hakan did, and the same goes for the way he gets caught, forcing him to disfigure himself with acid for Abby's

sake. While not completely necessary, I think starting with the Father being rushed to the hospital and witnessing his sudden death through the Detective's POV, then showing what led up to it and what actually happened, before continuing on, was a nice way of instantly distinguishing this film from the original (although, it causes a continuity snarl, as the scene where Abby visits the hospital, climbs up to the Father's room, and drinks his blood before he falls out, takes longer than what you see in the opening). I'm especially glad they got rid of the ickier aspects of

the story that permeated the Swedish version. But I think the biggest improvement is how the small group of townspeople are utilized in the story. While they're made into virtual nonentities, which they weren't in the Swedish version, I prefer this, as their side of things there wasn't that exciting, and the scene where Virginia, after being bitten by Eli, got attacked by Gosta's cats was definitely the hokiest part of an otherwise classy flick. Here, these characters are whittled down to three, they're not utilized in a 

manner that distracts from the main plot, they're made into other tenants at the apartment complex, and while Virginia is still attacked and infected with vampirism, the scene with the cats is removed (and thankfully, they didn't replace it with a scene involving her dogs), and she ends up in the hospital right after being bitten by Abby. Also, in the Swedish version, Virginia realizes that something strange is happening to her, and could possibly have asked this male nurse to open the blinds and expose her to sunlight in a case of 

assisted suicide; here, she's consumed by her new vampire instincts as soon as she regains consciousness and is then unwillingly exposed to sunlight, which I think is more effective. And instead of one of the friends looking for revenge, it's the Detective who breaks into Abby's apartment and whom she has to kill in front of Owen, which I think makes more sense.

Of course, I have to give the Swedish version its due and say that it is more atmospheric, with more striking cinematography, and like I said, you feel the extreme cold much more. I also think that it goes into the hardships of childhood a little better, even if the bullying feels more brutal here. And, on a practical note, in the Swedish version, Hakan explains why he's taking the acid with him, which doesn't happen here, so the Father suddenly disfiguring himself may seem to come out of nowhere. At the same time, there are some scenes and moments that I think both films are 

equally adept at, even if they go about them in different ways, such as the Father draining the first victim of his blood and then having to go back empty-handed, Abby attacking Jack in the tunnel, the confrontation between Owen and the bullies near the frozen pond and the discovery of Jack's body in the ice, the scene where the Detective sneaks around Abby's apartment and when Abby kills him in front of Owen, and the ending where she saves Owen from the bullies. However, that also gets into what may be the biggest strike against Let Me In: it hits nearly all 

of the same story-beats as the Swedish version. This is actually something you could say for most American remakes of foreign films, no matter how well-made they are or how much, like this one, they're able to forge their own identity. Indeed, despite Reeves telling John Ajvide Lindqvist that he intended for this to serve as another adaptation of his original novel, it's very similar to Let The Right One In, with many images and scenes looking and feeling virtually identical. While I can respect that Reeves

really liked both the book and the Swedish film, and felt he couldn't come up with much that was superior, the problem is, if you've seen that movie, you can absolutely predict how the story will play out and how it will end, and despite how clever those present are, there aren't enough significant diversions to surprise you.

Something else this film has in common with Let The Right One In is that it is fairly gory, with grisly imagery such as the Father draining Scott's blood from his hanging body and funneling it into a plastic jug; Abby feeding on Jack, with blood all around her mouth; similarly gruesome stuff when she feeds on Virginia and the Detective; a quick but nasty look at Kenny's split open ear; Jack's body, stuck to the underside of the section ice that's removed from the pond; all the blood that Abby washes off herself after she bled out; the really grotesque shot of Virginia,

now a vampire, biting into her own arm to feed on the blood they gave her in a transfusion; the gnarly makeup for the Father's melted, scarred face after he burns himself with acid; and the bullies' severed body parts falling into the pool around Owen. Also like in that film, there's a fair amount of visual effects work, and some of it is quite impressive, like the matting and blue screen work used to create the car crash that the Father causes, and Abby bleeding out, which is an effective combination of CGI and prosthetics. Others, however, Virginia burning and then bursting into

flames when she's exposed to the sun, and the nurse getting engulfed as well, don't look too great, and the same goes for when you see the Father actually burn himself, as well as some shots of the bullies getting killed at the end. The worst effects, however, are for the moments when Abby is jumping and running while in full vampire mode. Fortunately, you don't see these in too much detail, they don't happen often, and they're mostly done in silhouette, but still, they're laughable in how fake they look, with the movements looking more herky-jerky than the worst stop-

motion. And this isn't an instance where you can rationalize those movements by claiming it's because she's supernatural being; no, it's just crappy digital work. Finally, there's one bit of visual effects that's virtually imperceptible, which is when Abby climbs up the front of the hospital. While I was able to make her out in the Swedish film, here, she's so small in the frame, and the camerawork gives you so little indication of where she is, that the first few times I watched the movie, I didn't even see her! I don't know if I should compliment them on this or not, but it's so hard to see that I'm not going to bother to put an image of it in here.

The music score was composed by the always awesome Michael Giacchino and, like Johan Soderqvist's score for the Swedish film, it acknowledges the horrific side of the story while also going into the tragedy, melancholia, and tenderness that permeates it. There are many parts of the score that make use of this choir of voices, and this, in and of itself, ranges from sounding really eerie and ominous, like when the Father is draining Scott's blood, to coming across as childlike and even touching, such as when it plays in the scene where Abby visits the Father at the hospital and he allows her to feed on him. Also, the full-on horror scenes, like whenever Abby attacks, Virginia is destroyed, and Abby hemorrhages, are scored accordingly, while the scene where the Detective investigates Abby's apartment is done in a manner that, while building to a crescendo, is very old-timey and sort of "Mickey Mousing" in how it sounds. But, again, the score's main focus is the bittersweet friendship and romance between Owen and Abby, most notably in this really sad orchestral piece that plays when Abby leaves after the Detective is killed, which transitions into light, solemn, plucking strings when it cuts to Owen silently crying. And the end of the movie is scored with a very melancholic string piece, before going fully orchestral and leaning into the inherent tragedy of their relationship during the ending credits, which also feature the faint sound of the train continuing its journey. As for the soundtrack, you have David Bowie's Let's Dance, which you can vaguely hear playing inside Jack's apartment when Owen is spying on his neighbors; Turning Japanese by The Vapors during the first scene in the pharmacy; Do You Really Want To Hurt Me? by Culture Club when Owen takes Abby there; Burnin' For You by the Blue Oyster Cult, which plays on the car radio when the Father attacks his intended victim's friend; and, most notably, Breakup Song by the Greg Kihn Band, which Owen plays while Abby is changing her clothes in his apartment.

Let Me In is, most definitely, one of the American remakes of foreign movies that's worth watching. Even if you're a big fan of Let The Right One In, I would still recommend you seek this out, as I feel there are some things I think it does better, such as the main character and his miserable life, the incorporation of the 80's time period into the story, both literally and thematically, and the way it deals with certain ancillary characters and how they get caught up in the proceedings. It also manages to

recreate certain moments and scenes from the original in its own unique way, but also keeps a lot of its effective ambiguity. And, when judged purely on its own merits, it's very well-acted all around, Matt Reeves' direction is solid, the cinematography and location work is nicely done, the blood and makeup effects are top notch, there are some really impressive instances of visual effects, the music score is superb, and, overall, it makes for another good adaptation of this story, and is one I personally enjoy more. However, while not egregiously, it does fall into the trap of being a tad too similar to the original, meaning that if you've seen that movie, you can easily predict how this one is going to play out and it's not going to surprise you that much. There's also some very dodgy CGI work mixed in with the really good stuff, and, if you're like me and didn't think this story was the absolute game-changer that so many others felt it was to begin with, then it's not likely to convert you, despite its many strengths.