Saw it tonight and I thought it was excellent. I'm not this rabid fan of the original. I do like it. But I don't rank it as the greatest thing since sliced bread. I went with a friend who loves the hell out of the original. I think he's watched it 8 times and actually went it assuming the worst. He came out pleasantly surprised. The things he didn't like and the things I didn't like were essentially the same things, which was nice. There are probably SPOILERS ahead, so watch out.
I was incredibly satisfied with LET ME IN. Truly, I enjoyed this movie very much. I liked the fact that Owen wasn't as...i suppose you could say psychotic...as Oskar. Owen was more relatable to me. He seemed abit more desperate for companionship, more desperate for someone to just talk to, just to vent. Wheras, with Oskar, he had this opportunity but never used it. Which, in LET ME IN, handled better, I think. I LOVED how they never showed Owen's Mom's face. I love how her face was always from a distant and over-saturated with light, or unclearly reflected in a window or just off screen. Making her a religious nut only added to that isolation that Owen had. He has a dad he never sees, and has a Mom whose either asleep or in a world of her own. The fact that we as an audience never see her just shows how gone she is from Owen's world, and shows just how lonely Owen really is.
I though the relationship between Abby and Owen was more downbeat than in the original. And i liked that, but it may have to do with the fact that I'm kind of a pessimist. Heffer Wolf pointed out how he didn't like how unsubtle it was when Owen found those photos of Abby and, presumably, a young version of her "father". I loved it, as it gave more of an idea into Abby's motives. But I still felt that the ending could be interpreted differently. Abby manipulates Owen into being her keeper, which is bleak, but Owen has no one else anyway. In both films, that scene that dictates how Owen/Oskar should spend the rest of his life is the scene when he closes the door on Abby/Eli's victim in the bathroom. That was my favorite scene.
Another thing I really liked was how they eliminated completely the bar patrons. I'm not a fan by any means of the book. In fact, i HATED the book. And one of the reasons was because of the bar patrons. In the novel, they were whiny and obnoxious and in no way were they sympathetic. In LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, they were toned down a bit, but still obnoxious. I loved how Matt Reeves decided to scrap them all. I liked how Reeves incorporated the cop from the book into the film and really gave him something to do. And the reference to Tommy, Oskar's friend in the book, along with that basement room Owen hangs out in, were nice nods to the book as well. Ironically, in the book, the cop is Tommy's step-dad.
The things I didn't like were as follows: Too much music/score. What made the original much more haunting was the silence. The score here, on it's own was good, very Bernard Hermann. And it added a lot of suspense to some of the scenes, but sometimes it felt a little burdensome. The rest were just the way certain scenes were filmed. Owen whacking the bully in the face with the pole, while satisfying, was filmed better as that one wide, silent, shot. I didn't care too much for this one, but my friend didn't like the change. I didn't like the "hospital fire" scene, not so much because how it was shot, but because the build-up was too quick. This, perhaps, is a result of scrapping the bar patrons. I liked how in the original, there was this build-up of her becoming a vampire, with the cats attacking, and her need for blood. Here it's just, BAM! vampire. EXPLODE! In LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, it had a lingering effect to it, because we see this character more and more before it happens. In LET ME IN it's effective only for that one moment. However, if this means scrapping the bar patrons, I'll take it. And then the pool scene. The original did it better. That single, solitary shot of Oskar underwater was perfect. All the cutting in Reeves' version kind of ruined the impact. It's still a satisfying scene though, because, as DaCrowe said, the bullies are absolute scumbags.
Moving on, the cinematography was absolutely gorgeous. The opening scene was beautiful to look at. All of the warm amber colors outside(at night...perhaps showing the warming relationship between Abby and Owen), mixed with the cold, desolate grays and light blues of day, at home and in school were used to wonderful effect. The performances here were absolutely great. Chloe Moretz was wonderful in this. That undercurrent of dread, evil and manipulation in her movement and speech made her performance all the more sinister.
And Kodi Scot-McPhee did a wonderful job as well. As I said earlier, I prefer him to the kid who played Oskar, as he was just more relatable to me. Not as psychotic. Kody Scot-McPhee gave the role more of a tragic feel to it. You really feel for the character than you do in the original. Their dynamic together was stellar. That awkwardness and that undercurrent of dread was just wonderful to see.
I've seen elsewhere that the film is being called a carbon copy, which to me, is ludicrous. I've already stated my dislike of the book, which leads me to say this. LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, written by the same man who wrote the book, really streamlined ALOT of crap out of the novel. Matt Reeves does the same thing, and whatever he took out, he added some other, though small, things from the book. That said, these films are going to be similar. The story being told here is INCREDIBLY simple, and there's NOTHING, i repeat NOTHING that calls for LET ME IN to be drastically different in narrative and structure. Nothing called for LET ME IN to be as drastically different as say, Cronenberg's THE FLY was to the original. Cronenberg really changed up the story, making the transformation of man into fly into a slower, more terrifying and more tragic process and really amped up the emotion that really lacked in the original short story and the original film with Vincent Price that followed incredibly closely the short story. There's nothing in LET THE RIGHT ONE IN's story that calls for things like that. This is a story about a child who has no one and a child that needs someone. It's not that complicated.
Anyways, I'm not sure yet which version is better just yet. Both films were outstanding, and both have their ups and downs. However, I really need to see LET ME IN again, most likely on DVD where I can easily watch LET THE RIGHT ONE IN immediately and compare. My theatrical experience for LET ME IN was awful. Behind me sat this one real ******* fat guy, who laughed(the loudest, mind you) when Abby said "What would you do if I wasn't a girl?", at the scene when Abby kissed Owen and left a blood smear on his face and when Abby lies in bed with Owen and he asks her out. I asked him to shut up, and it didn't happen. Asked again, nope. And his equally obnoxious and equally gargantuan girlfriend kept calling the bullies "Jerks" and kept going "Aaw!" during the quieter moments between Abby and Owen. It really took me out of the movie, so I need to see it again.
and lastly, and no one, except DaCrowe, has really mentioned this, but this is HAMMER FILMS, man! Hammer films is back! And in a huge way, with LET ME IN. Remember, Hammer films got popular by remaking the Universal Horror films of the 30's, upping the violence abit more, doing better or equal jobs at it, too. For my first theatrical HAMMER experience, i couldn't go wrong with this. After having seen the behind the scenes pictures of Daniel Radcliffe in "The Woman In Black" and completely geeking out over the fact that it's taking place in the 19th/early 20th century, I'm almost positive that we're all gonna be seeing what made Hammer Films great all over again. Hammer excelled at making GREAT period piece horror films, and if they don't go down the route of decadence that ruined them in the 70's and don't go down this route of current horror trends, with gratuitous sex and violence, on top of the lack of intelligence, I except great things.
