Let The Right One / Me In

I  previously compared an American remake of a Scandinavian film in my Girl With The Dragon Tattoo post, and here is its sequel, if you like.

If you've just got back from a pretty much 12 hour spout of travelling, probably the very bottom of the go-to film list should be Let Me In (Matt Reeves, 2010) which, I would argue could only be topped in depressing-ness by Requiem for a Dream, Never Let Me Go or something like Deep Impact, but this is the film I was assaulted with on my day of relaxation.

Let Me In is the English language remake of Let The Right One In (Tomas Alfredson, 2008), which was in turn adapted from the popular gothic novel of the same title. It starrs Chloe Grace Moretz as the 12 year old vampire, and she is insatiable in her depiction of the character's dichotomous conflict between innocence and corruption. This is the central paradox and controversy of the story - Should we / can we sympathise with this monster?

Abby, as she is called, is not like the 'vampires' in Twilight , or hardly like any vampire depicted before. Rather than being glorified as Edward Cullen, with his clean-cut hair do and sparkly skin, she is (in the nicest way) repulsive. The way she is shot in her true vampire form, with the twitchy, flickering, spider-like effects that connote Samara from The Ring, remove any expectation of grace that the audience may have of the vampire. Her actions of killing innocents, and particularly manipulating the protagonist Owen and the 'father' until his sticky end, distinguish her as an object of disgust, or typically evil.

"What's that? Vampire's don't just ponce around looking sexy and mysterious all the time?"

However, since the story is told half from Abby's perspective, we as the audience are caught in between loathing her and sympathising with her pathetic state. Her perceived youth and inability to nourish herself cast her as vulnerable, at the same time she befriends the lonely Owen and ultimately shields him from his bullies at school. Her aforementioned lack of glamour also contributes to this sympathy, particularly in the scene where she enters Owen's house without invitation and faces the horrendous consequences. We can't help but pity her here.




Let The Right One / Me In is a brutal story, dark to the core and utterly subversive of the modern 'Vampire' archetype. It is so powerful because of its bleakness, lack of romanticism and cyclical view of abuse and neglect. If I had to chose which film I prefer I'd have to be boring and say I like both for different reasons, the Swedish version I feel embodies the gothic exotic for English or American viewers as it is set in an abstract location, but I feel both young actresses played the role of Abby to a chilling brilliance, and both dealt with the abject and horrific elements of the plot explicitly.

I'd certainly recommend you watch both films, but please don't make the same mistake as I did and select to watch them when you were more in the mood for something light-hearted and not in the slightest thought-provoking. It's a buzz kill to say the least.