Image copyright © by Marcus Trahan

Let Me In

(USA, UK, 2010)

This is a remake of the excellent Swedish film Let the Right One In (Låt den rätte komma in). That was a tale of a modern-day vampire, a twelve-year-old girl, who becomes friends with a boy. But the movie’s best line is when he asks her how old she is. “I’m twelve … but I’ve been twelve for a very long time.” Wow! For more about it check out my review of the Swedish movie. The second one, not the first.

As remakes go it’s pretty good. It is very faithful to the original story, sometimes almost shot for shot, though this version made a few changes. Here she is able to transform into some sort of flying creature, a bat I guess, though we never see it. She also looks demonic when sucking blood, which she didn’t in the original. They left out one of the best scenes, where another vampire enters a room full of cats and they instantly and insanely attack her. And if you put them together and compared the original shot by shot with the remake, the Swedish version would be better every time. But as I said, that doesn’t mean this one is bad. Chloë Grace Moretz is excellent as Abby, the vampire.