MOVIE REVIEWS: LET ME IN
October 1, 2010 by admin · Leave a Comment
“Those hoping to see a ‘vampire movie’ will be surprised by a good film,” is the way Roger Ebert concludes his review of Let Me In in the Chicago Sun-Times. Likewise, A.O. Scott in the New York Times advises readers who may already feel that they’ve had enough of vampire movies, “find room in your heart for this one.” Steven Rea in the Philadelphia Inquirer feels that Let Me In “is deeper than the Twilight series and most of the other vampire stuff.” And Lou Lumenick begins his review in the New York Post with a confession: “I hate most contemporary horror movies. Those boring and bloodless Twilight epics put me to sleep, and I’d sooner have a root canal than sit through Saw 3D or any of its torture-porn ilk, which are far more disgusting than frightening. Matt Reeves’ Let Me In, though, is the scariest, creepiest and most elegantly filmed horror movie I’ve seen in years — it positively drives a stake through the competition.” The movie is a remake of a Swedish film, similarly titled Let the Right One In. And nearly every reviewer remarks how similar the two films are — except, of course, that one is in Swedish and the other in English. (Liam Lacey in the Toronto Globe and Mail says it “exploits a deep-seated fear in America: subtitle-phobia.”) Some critics appear startled that some of the shots are almost identical to those in the original. They regard all this as plagiarism (“I kept glimpsing the original behind the tracing paper of the new film and wishing I could tear the paper away,” writes Ty Burr in the Boston Globe); others regard it as a tribute (“But this is more than a respectful remake; Let Me In is quietly stylish and thoroughly chilling in its own right,” says Joe Morgenstern in the Wall Street Journal.). And Peter Howell in the Toronto Star concludes: “Let Me In is that most novel of films: a remake that adds to our appreciation of the original, even if it doesn’t exceed it.”
