Directed by Matt Reeves. Starring Kodi Smit-McPhee, Chloe Moretz, Richard Jenkins, Elias Koteas. Horror, US/UK, 111m, cert 15.

Released on UK DVD and Blu Ray by Icon Home Entertainment on 14th March 2011. £15.99

Thomas Alfredson’s 2008 film LET THE RIGHT ONE IN was a startlingly original take on the vampire genre, a rare crossover hit that united horror and the art house (not that the two are mutually exclusive of course) in a way normally the preserve of Guillermo Del Toro. Remake rights were bought by Hammer even before the film received a release.

Matt Reeve’s LET ME IN arrives trailing not only the baggage of being a remake of a modern classic, but also at the height of a vampire bubble that has seen the classic monster becoming fodder for a mass teen audience. Following so soon on the heels of such a well regarded original has seen some horror enthusiasts turn their noses up at the very idea of the film, and going by its lacklustre box office returns its serious tone appears to have been equally off-putting to the Stephanie Meyer fans. This is unfortunate, as Reeve’s film is both respectful to Alfredson’s and different enough so as not to appear as an inferior carbon copy. Relocating the action to wintery New Mexico (although staying in the eighties) introduces an unfamiliar environment quite distinct other recent US vampire pictures.

Owen (Skit-McPhee, as impressive here as he was in THE ROAD) a bullied young boy living in a low-rent apartment block with his caring but emotionally fragile mother, meets Abby (Moretz) a young girl who has moved in next door with her father in the dead of night. Abby is an unusual girl, she sometimes smells strange, can’t eat candy without retching, never comes out in sunlight and insists that she must be invited in. Abby forms a bond with Owen, advising him on dealing with the bullies making his life miserable. “You have to hit back” she tells him. At the same time a series of grisly murders occur, the victims drained of blood. Can these events be connected?

LET ME IN diverts from the Alfredson’s in a number of ways, drawing on the original source novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist. Lindqvist’s excellent book featured a significant amount of plot excised in Alfredson’s film (By Lindqvist himself as he scripted). Significantly LET ME IN loses a major plot strand in which a group of alcoholics, misfits and borderline tramps investigated the murders after one of their friends becomes a victim, Reeves (also scripting) replaces them with a more traditional investigating cop character (Elias Koteas). While some sequences still play very similar to the Swedish film, Reeves mounts some of the key action scenes very differently. Even the biggest fans of the first film will probably be glad to hear that the CG cats are also gone.

Some critics on LET ME IN’s release went so far as to proclaim LET ME IN to be a superior film. Certainly it does play as a slightly more conventional genre film, Reeve’s has used a good but overtly horror score and increases the level of bloodletting somewhat (although curiously he doesn’t make much visual capital out of the contrast of crimson and white presented by setting a vampire tale in a snowbound landscape, something Alfredson did very well.

For me, I found it impossible to escape the gravitational pull of the original when watching LET ME IN. Reeves film never succeeded in touching me in the same way Alfredson’s did. The removal of the older characters diminishes the sense that this is an outsider’s story for both the vampire and the victims. While Smit-McPhee is excellent, his Owen is not quite as otherworldly and snivelling as Kåre Hedebrant’s Oskar who played his bullied character just right, giving off the unconscious signals that attract schoolyard bullies. While Moretz is fine as Abby, Reeves is far less subtle in the support he gives her, where Alfredson used subtle techniques to aid the performance of Lina Leandersson as LET THE RIGHT ONE IN’s vampire (going so far as to dub her with an older actresses’ voice) Reeves resorts to spooky contact lenses and CG assisted vampire attacks. The added violence and FX weaken the climax of the film as they reveal the vampires supernatural nature too early. The character of the investigating detective is so thin that even an actor as fine as Koteas struggles to make an impact in the part (curious as there is an equivalent policeman character in the novel who is very well characterised).

Despite these criticisms this is still a very effective horror film. Very well directed and shot. CLOVERFIELD director Reeves has easily done enough here to emerge from the shadow J. J. Abrams’ reputation cast over that picture. If you haven’t seen the Swedish original LET ME IN will very likely impress. However if you haven’t seen the original you really should do so first, and read the novel while you are at it.

Stuart Barr.

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