Let Me In

Because this movie is so faithful to the Swedish version, Let the Right One In, in both mood and structure, it is, naturally, a pretty great movie. In fact, in many ways it is better, adding a couple of great scenes and editing away some unnecessary minor characters. I also preferred the boy who plays the lead in this American version.

But (and everyone I know has a big but), I'm not really sure that director Matt Reeves proved to me that there was a real compelling reason to remake this excellent recent film. It's now in English, of course, but not much else has changed, and I came away from this with pretty much the exact same feeling I had coming away from the original. At times Matt Reeves actually lifts compositions directly from the Swedish film. Why was this made? And, yet, it's a great film on its own, just not quite different enough.