Let Me In: Back Review

Let Me In: Back Review

Year 2010

Cast Kodi Smit-McPhee, Chloë Grace Moretz and Richard Jenkins

Director Matt Reeves

Running Time 116 minutes

What can I say? I really enjoyed this haven’t been glued to a film like this for ages I felt in touch with the characters and didn’t fail to be entertained by any of the plot devices.

I was refreshing and even though a horror film didn’t focus too much on the horror aspect it was two children making friends despite a big difference.

At least on the surface so let’s pick this film apart first up its from director Matt Reeves and is a remake of sorts of a Swedish version of the same book Let the right one in. Matt Reeves other works include Cloverfield and writing other movies such as the yards and under siege 2.

A bit of a sleeper as it only did $12million in the box office which unfortunately pales to its $20million budget which I for one cannot see why this film cost so much to make most of the effects are make-up based and some shadowy CGI of Abby when she’s in feral vampire mode. Most of the actors aren’t big name stars so I guess trying to keep the film based in the 80’s as it is cost quite a bit perhaps?

So yes the movie it’s based in the 80’s we have the star of the show 12yr old Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee, who voiced Norman in Paranorman and has quite a few other films and TV appearances under his belt, oh and he looks like a frickin girl!) so he’s from split family, his mum is a crazy god bod and this is possibly the reason her and hubby have split.

Not only that, he is bullied by a group of three kids in school who call him girl all the time quite apt because he does look feminine, poor kid. They even make him piss his pants at one point with a giant wedgie.

He’s a little odd sort and likes to view stuff out of his telescope in his bedroom often with his top off and pretending to be some serial killer, great kid!

So one night he views some people moving into the flat next to his mums, and then the next time he’s out late on the little climbing frame outside the apartment Abby comes up barefoot and cryptically tells him they can’t be friends. Abby (played by Chloë Grace Moretz, hit girl from one my personal favourite movies Kick Ass among loads of others things and a sequel!) visits him a few times and despite her protestations from before they spark up a friendship.

Owen often hear arguing coming from their flat and thinks it is her dad shouting at her possibly forming a bond before he should (though from my recollection he doesn’t find out ever that its Abby doing the shouting most of the time) He gives Abby Morse code so they can communicate through the wall.

So Abby’s dad as we know him at this point goes out and we see him collecting blood which due to a bad leg he stumbles and loses it. So yes by now you’ve all guessed Abby is a 12yr old vampire when he gets back to tell her Owen hears her, mistaking her father shouting.

So she goes out and ices a guy who tries to help her thinking she’s a distressed child the body of the drain boy from her father is found and this gets the police involved.

One more failed jaunt to get Abby blood ends in her dad whom soon we find out it’s not her dad get him badly hurt and caught by the police, not before he melts his face off with acid to prevent identification.

Abby finds out goes to the hospital where he lets her feed off him and kill him this mixes into the beginning of the movie here and makes more sense of what happens.

So Owen learns Abby is a vampire later on, which he seems to accept pretty easy and they kind of become girlfriend and boyfriend with one scene she gets into bed with him naked! Abby cannot enter a house without being invited “let me in” as the film’s title is called; we see what happens when she tries to do this without being allowed later.

She teaches him Owen stick up for himself, which backfires when he breaks one of the bully’s ears in half with a metal pole.

Abby makes a mistake feeding later leaving a woman alive who becomes a vampire in a hospital when the nurse draws a curtain she bursts into flames this helps the detective whose on the case know the right block of flats. When he eventually find the right flat before he can pull off the window coverings Abby ices him.

She apparently leaves after this a saddened Owen is actually trying to swim (sorry something he’s been a little reluctant to do since the start of the film) when one of the bully’s older brothers hatch a revenge plan and push Owen under the water.

Well I won’t spoil too much but it doesn’t end well for them. Right now what I see and most will see is two not ordinary children making friends through adversity, a lot of it!

Though if you dig deeper here at least in my eyes, Abby is actually manipulating Owen in a way so she can just get a new protector we see she’s done it before and she quite possibly has become adept at this kind of manipulation as we don’t know how many times this seemingly 12yr old girl has tricked an out of sorts young boy into being her protector.

Just once? I haven’t read the book so the last person may have been her brother who knows as we don’t know how truly old she is other than *old* so as far as we know she’s done it a lot and knows how to get what she needs to continue on, as we know from the shouting and the way she treats he last protector that she’s not exactly the nicest of people either.

Now aside from this dig into the films actual possible meaning I did love their interaction it was nice to see a down in the dumps kids form a relationship with a girl where in our ideal world would never have happened.

The film does have its flaws and through these I am giving this film a 4 out of 5 star review it’s definitely worth a watch if you got a boring 2hrs to pass on these upcoming rainy/snowy days

Join me on Twitter @TheHorrorNation