Let Me In

Excellent movie.  It was portrayed as a creeper, scary movie, but that is so far from the truth, it's not funny.

Before I get in to music, cinematography, and continuity, I want to give you a short synopsis of the movie (without spoilers).  Owen, a young boy of 12, lives with this mother who is in the process of getting a divorce.  She means so little to him that we never clearly see her face.  She's actually completely unimportant except for the fact that we never see her face, indicating that Owen really doesn't care for her.

Shortly after the movie begins, a young girl named Abby, about the same age as Owen, moves in to the same apartment complex with a man that appears to be her father.  She wears no shoes (most of the time) and walks in the snow without flinching.  Eventually the two children meet and become friends, albeit awkwardly.

The movie revolves around their developing relationship and a string of killings in the area.

I'll leave it at that.  If I say anything else, it will spoil the whole movie and it's totally worth watching just to learn who Abby is and why she's just moved in to the area.

Some of the cinematography I can't get in to as well because it will allude to Abby's identity.  So I'll just say that there is some creative facial art that is incredibly well done.  The entire movie has a very eerie gray-ish hue during the day, excluding a few scenes where Owen is out on his own.  The sun is very rarely brightly shining, indicating the depth of winter in which the movie takes place.

Overall, the tone of the movie is dark and slightly depressing.  Within the first few minutes of the movie, you're under one impression, but once you put the pieces of the puzzle together, you begin to feel extreme compassion for the man that is helping Abby as well as Abby herself.

What helps induce this level of compassion is the score.  It is soft; the only situations in which the music is loud is during times when Owen is feeling anger.  And even then, by loud I mean about a mezzo-forte singe bass drum hit that is allowed to resonate.  It is sometimes repeated very slowly when Owen is pissed.  Otherwise, the music is beautifully depressing, very soft, slow, and melodic.  I actually cried at once point in the movie when most people would probably be creep-ed out.

Owen also likes to watch people.  A lot.  And these people he watches typically end up dead.

The movie's creep factor is minimal.

WARNING:  Spoilers Ahead.  Do NOT continue reading.




The reason the movie's creep factor is minimal is because this story is about a girl who's been a vampire for as long as she can remember and is really much older than 12 (as she says she is).  She never reveals her true age, and is only asked once, by Owen near the end of the movie, if she is a vampire.  The viewer has to figure this out (which shouldn't take very long because you do see her drink blood from a random jogger in the first half hour of the movie).  However, Abby does not act as though she is an immortal 300-year old woman trapped in a 12 year old body.  She acts very much like a 12 year old who has been on the run her entire life just trying to survive.

Now vampires are creepy to some people.  The level of "gore" in this movie might also be creepy to some people.  To me, it was not.  It felt like a love movie.  It was excellently executed, not overdone or trite or obnoxious.  The amount of blood seen in the movie is actually quite minimal for a movie considered to be horror.  I'll put it this way: I hate gore-splattered movies and this movie was, to me, very far from it.  There were definitely some bloody scenes but the movie is, after all, about a g-damn vampire.  There will be blood.  (See what I did there?)

/Spoilersoff


Excellent movie, highly recommended.  5 out of 5.  I'm going to read the book it was based on when I get the chance.  I also want to watch the original, Swedish version of the movie.