‘Let Me In’ is a thrilling remake of Swedish film

September 30, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

‘LET ME IN’

Grade: A

Credits: Chloe Moretz, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Richard Jenkins, Elias Koteas; directed by Matt Reeves

Running time: 1:55

Rating: R, for strong bloody horror violence, language and a brief sexual situation

Movie

Let Me In

An alienated 12-year-old boy befriends a mysterious young newcomer in his small New Mexico town, and discovers an unconventional path to adulthood. Owen is viciously bullied by his classmates and neglected by his divorcing parents. Achingly lonely, Owen spends his days plotting revenge on his middle school tormentors and his evenings spying on the other inhabitants of his apartment complex. His only friend is his new neighbor Abby, an eerily self-possessed young girl who lives next door with her silent father. A frail, troubled child about Owens's age, Abby emerges from her heavily curtained apartment only at night and always barefoot, seemingly immune to the bitter winter elements. Recognizing a fellow outcast, Owen opens up to her and before long, the two have formed a unique bond. When a string of grisly murders puts the town on high alert, Abby's father disappears, and the terrified girl is left to fend for herself. Still, she repeatedly rebuffs Owen's efforts to help her and her increasingly bizarre behavior leads the imaginative Owen to suspect she's hiding an unthinkable secret.

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By Roger Moore

Orlando Sentinel

There are monsters who wander the halls of our schools, selecting victims, destroying lives.

We call them bullies. And they’re the real beasts of Matt Reeves’ “Let Me In,” his bloody, almost note-for-note remake of the Swedish tween vampire hit “Let the Right One In.” Whatever horrors the bloodsucker unleashes on 1983 Los Alamos, N.M., they’re not as immediate as the no-holds-barred brutality of a gang of middle schoolers who torment poor Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee).

Owen is an odd 12-year-old, a sad, sensitive loner who steals from his mom’s purse so he can buy candy, the sort of skinny kid who doesn’t join in most sports and who earns daily assaults and atomic wedgies for it.

But Owen has a new neighbor. She’s his age. Yes, it’s winter, and no, she often doesn’t wear shoes out into the snow. Her “dad” (the peerless Richard Jenkins) is secretive and strange. But Owen could use a friend.

“Just so you know, I can’t be your friend,” are pretty much the first words out of her mouth. “That’s just the way it is.”

He is smitten, understandable since Abby is played by the beguiling Chloe Moretz (“Kick Ass,” “Diary of a Wimpy Kid”). And eventually, she relents on the whole “friend” thing. All he has to do is invite her in.

Reeves resets this story in the Reagan era and makes Owen’s mom religious, bitter over her impending divorce and always watching religious programming (including Ronald Reagan speeches). The “Cloverfield” director also tells chunks of the story in flashback, following a cop (Elias Koteas) who is trying to figure out if a “Satanic cult” is behind the rash of ritual murders that now rivet the town.

Smit-McPhee (“The Road”) suggests an innocent creepiness, a child who peeks in on his sexy neighbors through his telescope, who practices face-offs with his school tormentors with a newly bought pocket knife. His Owen seems childish but capable of terrible things.

Moretz is fast staking out the title “Next Jodie Foster.” Her performances are always good, but in her past two films, directors have sexualized her — given her Lolita lighting and wardrobe. Like the original Swedish film, there’s a touch of the kinky, if not just the inappropriate, to this.

And Dylan Minnette, as Kenny, is every amoral 12-year-old villain you’ve ever read about — a sociopath in a Justin Bieber bowl-cut. Minnette’s bullying menace reminded me of early Matt Dillon teen-thug performances.

The digitally-augmented vampire attacks are marginally more convincing than the ones in the “Twilight” films, and Moretz’s Abby is a poster child for how messy “real” vampires would be — the opposite of the kabuki Cullens of Forks, Wash.