Hell hath no fury like a woman’s scorn, or so seems to think Let Me In, originally written by John Ajvide Lindqvist and adapted to the screen and directed by Matt Reeves.
The movie begins with a young girl, Abby, (Chloe Moretz) moving to an apartment complex with an older man where she meets a lonely, 12 year-old named Owen (Kodi Smit-Mcphee). Boy likes girl, but girl can’t quite reciprocate. She’s got issues, you see, namely, she’s a vampire who needs to drink blood to survive and will burn if exposed to sunlight. The film never explains why she has to kill innocent, unimportant characters when drinking their blood; in one scene Owen cuts his hand and Abby uncontrollably turns into her vampire form and drinks the drops off the ground and he survives, but whatever, this logic lapse makes for some creepy death scenes!
The vampire attacks are done in CGI giving a jerky effect to the character, which may be a limit of the technology, but adds a perfect surreal touch to movements. Oh, and this Vampire has incredibly agility and climbing ability. Vampire Abby dashes up the side of buildings and trees to perch eerily on upper branches. All of this is enhanced by excellent cinematography which shoots these feats mainly from a distance and behind. It brought to mind a superhero movie where two random idiots somewhere in New York look up, point and shout: “Look, Superman! He'll save us!” Reeves seems intent on grouping us in with the pack. In this case the students at the school, part of the community that doesn’t quite get how difficult life can be for those that are less fortunate.
Let Me In plays as an interesting anti-thesis to Twilight, where male sexual desire was represented by Edward’s repression of his vampire om nom impulse towards Bella. The Smashing Pumpkins intro: “The World is a Vampire” is an apt description of Let Me In’s angle where Lindqvist sees the vampire as a feminine symbol. Women run the show in this one. “Has your mother been filling your head with this religious shit?” probes Owen’s dad over the phone when in an emotional state, he calls his estranged father to ask if there’s evil in the world. No son, there’s no evil. God’s a woman and there’s only female desire. Good luck with all your problems! Lindqvist reduces male characters to brain-dead servants.
As a horror flick, the movie succeeds in sucking a few creeps out of you. There are genuinely grotesque scenes, see disfigured man / vampire love, and the movie’s pointed thesis gives it enough pretension to not go for the cheap shock-scare.
In the end, Let Me In probably had to be made. Something to counter the manipulative beguilement of the Twilight series, but let’s hope vampires don’t go as crazy over other bodily fluids as they do for blood! If so, it’s going to be a long, long life for that vampire and her kid.
Wallace appreciates this, much!
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