The film is based on the Swedish book Let the Right One In, which was made into a very good film in 2008. The story transcends the vampire genre. Owen is a 12-year-old kid who has no friends and is the main target of the school bully's cruelty, both physical and psychological. His family is broken and he lives with his mother in a sad apartment complex. One night when he is sitting on the jungle gym outside of the apartment (in the snow - because when it's cold and snowy outside it's totally normal to sit outside) he meets Abby, a strange girl who doesn't wear shoes and immediately tells him that they can't be friends, "because that's just how it is."
It turns out that she's a vampire and the older man she lives with kills people to harvest their blood to keep her happy and healthy and protect her from her own nature. When he's unable to get the blood, she goes wild and attacks people like a demon. Of course she keeps this all a secret, but slowly we discover this as she and Owen become friends.
She is a source of happiness in the middle of his lonely life. She helps him stand up to the bullies in school and respects him as a friend - becoming his only friend. The problem, of course, is that she is not a girl and she doesn't live a normal life.
Most of the scenes in the film take place at night, and many of them are outside in the snow. This lends a sense of peace and beauty, despite the violence that underlies the story. The only problem is that writer/director Matt Reeves uses a score (by Michael Giacchino) that is constantly present in every shot of every scene. In moments of calmness and docility, we always hear music, as if we need reminding of the quietness of the scene (rather than just letting us have silence). In scenes with more drama, the score is also there, as the tools of the genre dictate. This is just one example of how Reeves has the opportunity to make a film that is truly beyond the slasher genre, but falls back into the bloody hole of the style dictates time and time again.
I would have loved a movie about a real-world vampire girl who has to live and move around in the real world. The setting for the film is totally real-feeling and seems like a place we might remember (from the 1980s). The problem is that when she sees blood or needs blood, her eyes become cat-like and yellow and her skin gets gray, transforming the sweet girl into a horrible monster. This comes down to just schlocky slasher-flick crap and it totally doesn't fit in with the tone of the film. There are about three scenes that are significantly more bloody and gory than they need to be - again because Reeves is happier to give the blood-thirsty audience something to hoot about rather than something that would fit in well with the film.
The acting throughout is very good. Richard Jenkins plays Abbby's older man friend/father, a man who loves the girl and can't get out of his bizarre relationship with her. Chloe Moretz (who was previously in Kick-Ass) is Abby and is very good as is Kodi Smit-McPhee as Owen (who was previously the boy in The Road).
There are a lot of silly things in the film as well as some things that are simply unnecessary. Owen's mother's face is never seen as she is always shot out of focus in the distance or from behind. I guess this is supposed to lend a sense of isolation and alienation - and underlines the messed-up nature of his family - but it's way too heavy-handed (we could have had the mother talk like Charlie Brown's teacher and it would have been about the same result). In one scene with a woman who has become a vampire, she is seen sucking her own blood. I guess that could happen in some weird, kinky vampire circles, but it would seem to be outside of the general vampire mythology. (Mostly this whole sequence with the other vampire is just an excuse for more blood and gore - but is totally separate from the Owen-Abby story.)
I guess it's fair that Americans wanted to re-make a successful movie - or re-adapt an interesting book about vampires (they're so hot now!), but I don't think this does enough different from the first to be totally worthwhile. I have not read the book, but just comparing this film to the last, it seems to me that it's basically the same (it even looks the same - and I'll forgive the fact that Los Alamos in the winter is not as cold as Sweden in the winter) with a lot more blood and violence. In fact this film is much less sympathetic and psychologically connected than the first one was. I think this is a shame as it was those elements that made the first one stand out among other vamp fare.
Stars: 2 of 4
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