Let Me In **** (2010, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Chloë Grace Moretz, Elias Koteas, Richard Jenkins, Dylan Minnette) – Classic Movie Review 3783

Sparks fly when the boy from The Road (2009) meets the girl from Kick-Ass (2010). Kodi Smit-McPhee plays Owen, a lonely, dorky 12-year-old boy with a telescope, prying on the neighbours. Chloë Grace Moretz plays Abby, apparently the same age, who lives next door with a man who’s supposedly her father, the local serial killer, preying on kids.

Bullies are tormenting the boy at school – Kenny (Dylan Minnette) and two other classmates – so Owen tries to make friends with the girl, who turns out not to be quite as she seems. With huge surprises and shocks in store, it helps if you haven’t seen the original Swedish movie of writer-director Matt (Cloverfield) Reeves’s 2010 American remake of Let the Right One In (2008), or read the source novel.

But, still, this is a great success, pumping up the horror content and nail-biting tension, but keeping the eerie atmosphere and central twisted love story. Smit-McPhee and Moretz are astonishing, though one might fear for their long-term peace of mind. Elias Koteas and Richard Jenkins add reliable class in limited roles as the investigating detective and the father.

Reeves handles the set pieces with relishable flair, building on the ideas of the original with the help of a much bigger budget, and turning in an astounding looking as well as terrifying and emotionally satisfying movie. It is very pervy, scary, worrying stuff, but then that’s its point – it is a true horror thriller film.

Safely re-located to Los Alamos in New Mexico in 1983, rarely has an American remake been so accomplished or so vital. How good is this!

Matt Reeves is also the director of The Pallbearer (1996), Cloverfield and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014).

Tomas Alfredson is the director of  Let the Right One In, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and The Snowman.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3783

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