Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is a 12 year old kid in Los Almos, New Mexico during 1983 when Ronald Regan was President and talking the evil empire (and touting the Star Wars Defense System).  Owen is bullied at school and makes unlikely friends with the new girl Abby (Chloe Moretz), who has just moved into his apartment building.   People start disappearing in the dead of night and Owen soon discovers Abby is no ordinary girl and she is a vampire.   The story uses the horrors of childhood and plants a vampire story in the middle of it.   The core story is the usual friendship between a bullied boy and a vampire stuck at the age of a 12 year old girl forever that may end up as doomed sooner or later

LET ME IN is another good horror film from Overture Films.   It is slow in places, but the film zeroes in on the horror creep out factor several times during the film.  Matt Reeves has an excellent hand of directing the film, but LET ME IN does hold up on repeat viewings.  The music adds to the scary mood along with the gloomy and gritty cinematography.  LET ME IN is a good remake of LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (from Sweden).  

Still LET THE RIGHT ONE IN is the better film even though Chloe Moretz proves KICK ASS wasn't a fluke on her part.  She is a stellar acting talent and I wonder what she will do years from now if she can impress this much at such a young age.  LET ME IN is a film that sadly won't make much at the box office (adding to Overture Films' problems), but I hope the film will be redeemed on DVD and Blu-Ray.  Also go check out LET THE RIGHT ONE IN if you haven't seen it.

SPECIAL FETAURES:

Audio commentary with writer/ director Matt Reeves give insight on working with child actors and the scenes in the book that aren’t in the movie (and make me want to go buy the book this movie and LET THE RIGHT ONE IN are adapted from).

FROM THE INSIDE: A LOOK AT THE MAKING OF LET ME IN- a 17 minute behind-the-scenes making-of featurette

THE ART OF SPECIAL EFFECTS shows the various steps in creating various special effects shots.

CAR CRASH SEQUENCE STEP-BY-STEP (with audio commentary) shows how two different shots are blended into one seamless continuous shot.

Three deleted scenes with optional audio commentary with writer/ director Matt Reeves include one scene that gives more of a role for the gym teacher

A poster and behind-the-scenes photo gallery include some very cool posters and

The Green Band and Red Band trailers of the movie

FINAL ANALYSIS:  LET EM IN is a good and chilling remake of LET THE RIGHT ONE IN.  Please check out both films and maybe even go read the novel.  The audio commentary is worth a listen and the deleted scenes include some material cut for pacing.

This DVD review is ©3-3-2011 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission.  Send all comments to lord_pragmagtic@hotmail.com