“LET ME IN” Movie Review. Knock! Knock! “I WANT YOU. I WANNA COME IN. LET ME IN!”

“LET ME IN” Press Preview

Geez, the creepy title is enough to create goosebumps.

“Let me in …”  (softly)

Let WHO in? (crying out loud)

My heart skips a beat.

That grotesque figure at that window?

An apparition?

Who’s THAT?

“LET ME IN” is a supernatural thriller that will surely drain your blood and chill your bones.

If that happens, then you’ll probably be dead meat.

It’s spawned from the successful Swedish movie “Let the Right One In,” which is ostensibly, one of the most thought-provoking, vampire films ever made.

This one is an Americanized version, paying a worthy tribute to the predecessor.

The scene shifts from Stockholm (the original version) to Los Alamos, New Mexico, in the 1980s, the current one.

Matt Reeves, who directed the shocking “Cloverfield,” serves as screenwriter and film director here.

The lead is 12-year-old Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee), a scrawny, perturbed looking boy with a doleful, wide-eyed innocence.

He is always the target of a bunch of devious bullies at school.

Karma has it that these obnoxious terrors will soon have their just desserts.

Enter a weirder-than-weird girl named Abby (Chloe Moretz).

She moves into the same apartment complex where Owen and his mother live.

From the start, it’s apparent that she’s a trifle peculiar.

Dishevelled, gaunt, walking around bare foot and even more solitary than Owen, Abby makes cranky nightly encounters to connect with her new neighbor.

Here, two lonely hearts beat, a secret shared.

When she tells Owen that they can never really be friends, she has this faraway gaze.  Why so?

Naturally Owen confides in her about the school bullies.

And Abby cajoles him to stand up to them and fight back, hard.

Her father (Richard Jenkins) who lives with Abby disapproves and forbids her to see Owen.

Yet she continues to form a heartwarming bond with the lonely boy.

She sees in him a certain kind of attachment, a detachment of sort.

Thereafter strange things start happening following a string of bizarre killings.

The platter multiplies and the mystery deepens.

Until a police investigator arrives in the neigborhood to check clues and unravel the murders.

It is only then that Owen discovers that there’s indeed, more than meets the eye.

That Abby is possibly linked to all the blood and gore.

If so, he has to fear for his own safety.

Because Abby is a young vampire, thriving on human blood.

And her father, her protector, kills to procure more blood for her so that she may live.

At times touching, mostly horrific,”LET ME IN” weaves a tragic tale of two lonely young souls whose friendship grows and glows in an unusual way.

Is there a restriction that declares that you can’t form a liaison with the supernatural?

Stories of the macabre kind affecting the sweet innocence of kids who have this thirst for blood never fail to bring in the quiver, shiver and scream.

For sure.

Both Smit-McPhee and Chloe Moretz justify their innocent-and-demonic roles, playing their parts to the hilt, crafting screen personas with a good amount of sensitivity, laced with both depth and lurking horror.

The film director’s visual treatment, his affecting juxtaposition of tenderness and savagery, brings forth stellar performances from the rest of a competent cast.

“LET ME IN” makes for a unique experience unlike any other in recent horror-movie genre.

It is one creepy, chilling and scary film that will enthrall you and nail you to your seat.

Don’t look back!

For all you know, you may change your mind about your visit to the loo during the movie, for fear that you’ll miss part of the mounting excitement, leading to the heart-pounding finale.

Don’t we all?

Beware!

“LET ME IN” CAN BE THIS GOOD.