Let Me In

We went to check out Let Me In last night with some friends. Being a massive fan of the original this was certainly my pick of what we should see. I was pretty curious to see how the movie translated to an American director. Overall I was pretty happy with the movie. Shot for shot it was nearly identical to the original. The courtyard where they first meet even has the identical steel climber. The main difference between the films is not the cinematography, it's the story. The original is a very European film. Films for American audiences are typically dumbed down a little. They always have to 'make sense' or the audience just doesn't get it. The original movie is the same story but without the little strings. It's pretty typical of European movies to apply to a higher level of intelligence and presume the audience can figure out the facts with some queues. The American film also changes the vampire character Abby, particularly in the way she attacks. In the European release she was fairly dominant and when she attacked the person couldn't really fight back. In the American movie she is somewhat spiderlike and tends to pounce two or three times.


Overall the movie gets high marks from me. It doesn't top the original movie but it does come close. I would have liked to see the original names Oskar and Eli used. Would have been a tip of the hat to the original. The effects were also much better in the American version, $20mil budgets will do that. Overall 7/10