Year: 2010
Directed by: Matt Reeves
Written by: Matt Reeves (Screenplay) & John Ajvide Lindqvist (screenplay and novel: "Låt den rätte komma in")
A bullied boy finds a new friend in the mysterious girl that moves into his building.
In middle school we saw a piece of Låt den rätte komma in in Finnish/literature class, when we were studying the horror genre. I wasn't too interested in the film at time, mostly because 14-15-year-old me wasn't interested in horror. On the contrary I was terrified of everything, because I had bad experiences with horror before I turned like 17. I think The Rite was the first horror movie I could watch without losing my ability to sleep. But these days I appreciate all genres: if the film is well made, genre doesn't matter too much.
I happened to watch Let Me In because Netflix recommended it for me. I adore Chloë Grace Moretz, and I actually didn't know she was in Let Me In. But whatever I was expecting from this film, I wasn't disappointed!
The story of Let Me In is very tragic and unhappy, but it has such heart-warming, cute little moments my heart was about to break. Of course Moretz' character is a brutal vampire, but she plays that innocent little girl so well.
One other thing really stands out in this film: the cinematography. Usually British studios make movies very similar to the typical Hollywood scene, but the cinematography in this movie is so amazingly European. Let Me In reminds me a lot of different Danish movies I've seen. I'd really love to compare this to Låt den rätte komma in but since I haven't seen it I truly can't say anything for sure, but I'll take a wild guess and say that the cinematography has been strongly effected by the original.
The soundtrack of this movie is absolutely enchanting. It has the strengths of horror and some kind of child-like fantasy.
The story of this film is brilliant. It's simple, yet it isn't. There are so many ways the viewer can interpret different scenes and plot points, thus stories like this are way more interesting to the audience. Especially when you can read different theories and watch the movie again to see how well those match up.
There's a lot of blood and such in this film, but it isn't horror in the way that it just suddenly scares you. It is way subtler, quieter. The film isn't scary, it's more like... disturbing. But all the beautiful scenes make up for that, and the viewer doesn't feel the usual horrible feeling that usually lingers after a horror movie.
Finally the writer doesn't just ignore the classic vampire features. I'm sick of the trope where the vampires of the film are like "No, we don't sleep in coffins or turn into bats, that's Hollywood stuff" (you know which film I am talking about, right?). Sure, maybe Abby didn't turn into a bat here - at least we didn't see that, but who knows? - but there still were so many classic details of vampires, for instance how vampires have to be invited or allowed inside. Hence the name.
I warmly recommend Let Me In, even if you aren't interested in horror genre. This film is more like dark fantasy drama than horror. It has amazing story and such brilliant cast. It's a beautiful film, definitely.
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
10 / 10
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