The Only Decent Vampire Romance – Donny Grimm’s Let Me In Review

Well, we all knew it was coming, what with all the other movies being violated by the throbbing hard intellects of vague writers and directors, it was only a matter of time before one of my favourite movies was to suffer the same fate.

Let Me In is a remake of a foreign film called Let the Right One In based off a novel of the same name. A Swedish film, obviously using subtitles, the film had a certain artistic touch that Matt Reeves couldn’t help but shit on. I’ll admit the film, both new and original, had a sort of Twilight-esque romance to it, something I was never fond of, albeit the genders were switched…and the kids in these are about 13 years old…I now find myself questioning the writer’s tastes.

That aside, I’m not saying the movie was bad. It was well made if not a little more visceral than the original which is always good. Reeves did a good job recreating the film in an 80’s North America, paying close attention to the fashions, technology and social standards, even though the 80’s was sort of that forgotten transition decade between the 70’s and the 90’s that nobody seemed to care about. Maybe it would have been better if it took place in the 70’s and the main character had a afro the size of a beach ball and lived in an apartment on top of a roller disco, but maybe that’s asking a bit too much.

One thing that this vampire romance got right was what happens to them in the sun. A vampire gets caught in the sun in a hospital and bursts gloriously into flames burning itself and everything in the room to a pile of ash. In Twilight it was almost like Edward fell down, hit his head in the dark and forgot he wasn’t a strobe light. Now, enough about focusing on the little things. As a whole, Let Me In held its own against me which not many vampire romances can say. I recommend this AND the original to any vampire fan out there looking for maybe a toned down from 30 Days of Night or Daybreakers but still aren’t willing to put themselves through Twilight.

…………Twilight sucks.

Final Score: 3.5/5

– Donny Grimm