Let Me In

 Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is a friendless, bullied latchkey kid whose life is changed when a new girl, Abby (Chloe Grace Moretz), moves in next door. Abby is twelve, the same age as Owen, but she's been twelve (to paraphrase the novel) for a very long time. Because she's a vampire. Which might be why when they meet, she coldly tells Owen that she can't be her friend.

 That falls by the wayside quickly because, in this take on the undead staple, child vampires retain at least something of their childhood no matter how many nights they've seen. Despite her misgivings, she ends up developing a connection with Owen, much to the displeasure of her familiar Thomas (Richard Jenkins).

 What follows is a weirdly sweet story about two outcasts falling in together amidst the chaos and mayhem that vampiric subsistence demands: they teach themselves Morse Code to communicate through their bedroom walls. He teaches her about the modern world and Mrs. Pacman, she teaches him to solve Rubik's cubes and to stand up for himself. They murder someone together. Puppy love.

 If any of this sounds familiar, it's because this is a remake of Tomas Alfredson's Swedish arthouse horror hit Let The Right One In, itself an adaptation of a 2004 novel by John Ajvide Lidqvist. This film came out only a couple years after the original, and at the time director Matt Reeves claimed it'd be a parallel adaptation of the book rather than a remake of Afredson's take on it.

 Well... I call bullshit. This is as close to a one-to-one adaptation of the original movie as these American remakes get, with many of the scenes staged and even framed almost identically. It's kind of hard to defend as anything other than as an exercise in making the movie more palatable to Americans... and that's a shame, because it's a pretty terrific movie on its own right.

 Let's go with the good first: The acting is phenomenal, with both Smit-McPhee and Moretz giving natural, convincing performances that both differ and compliment their Swedish counterparts. Both of them feel believable as kids, and what's rarer and more exciting, as weird, kind of unlikeable -but still relatable- kids. Full credit to them and the script (by Reeves, tracing the original script from Ajvide Lidqvist).
 Jenkins, as the familiar, is also terrific, and his character is much more sympathetic than his predecessor on Alfredson's take - not to mention the one on the book, who was a sociopathic paedophile strung along by the vampire with promises of cold, cold, underage eunuch corpse sex*. Elias Koteas also puts in an appearance; Great as usual, but barely there enough to register.

 The filmmaking and cinematography (by Greig Fraser) are also good. Matt Reeves is no Alfredson, but he acquits himself nicely. And because he's closely following someone else's script, this is by far his best movie - which is ironic, because his additions here, including a hilarious-slash-tense murder attempt followed by a harrowing car crash, are top-notch and the only time this version creeps out from the original's shadow.

 I'll also lump in some of what they chose not to go with on the remake in with the good. The book's biggest menace (spoilers for something that doesn't happen), an acid-scarred vampire going around murdering people in a paedo-boner-induced frenzy fails to make his debut for a second time in favour of a much more intimate, and honestly better, third act. I remember thinking at the time that would be this one's selling point, what with the claims on it being closer to the book, so that was a close one. It also doesn't re-attempt a scene with some hilariously dodgy CGI cats.

 Finally, Reeves' version -by virtue of his direction not being as clinical as Alfredson's- seems to add a little warmth, lean a little more into the story's fucked-up romanticism. That's nicely cut down by a little detail, unique to this version (in fact, it directly contradicts the book), that implies a much more cynical interpretation to the film's ending.

 But in the end... despite some differences, it ends up feeling to me like a lesser imitation. Part of that is that it's such a unique story that it's robbed of some of its power the second time around. I do wonder how I'd rate them if I had seen the remake first, but I think I'd still prefer Alfredson's chillier interpretation. CGI cats notwithstanding. I also wonder whether I'd like the new one better without Michael Giacchino's score. It's perfectly fine, but it sounds too intrusive and... well, too Hollywood for the material.
 The effects are a mixed bag. They're mostly ok, but I really disliked the way Abby moves as a vampire; Took me out of the movie in a similar way those shit CGI cats took me out of the original. Speaking of; As good as Moretz is, I liked Lina Leandersson's take much better - she just looked, and sounded (thanks to her voice being dubbed by Elif Ceylan) much more... other, something that's sorely missing in the remake.

 All in all I'm probably being too harsh on this one. It bears repeating that taken on its own, it's an excellent, unique, sophisticated little movie that packs a hell of an emotional punch, whichever way you choose to interpret its nicely ambiguous ending**.

 But... well, it's not on its own, is it?

*Ajvide Lidqvist adores taking deep dives into the psyches of deeply repellent people, and the book's chapters narrated from Thomas's (Hákan in the original) point-of-view are a pretty harsh reading endurance test, even to this jaded horror fan. That's nothing compared to Little Star, though, which is basically an attempt to cram in as much awful, awful human behaviour as possible into a single novel.

**I leaned cynical. The book's author disagrees. He also loved both adaptations.