Let Me In – Blu-ray Review

The Film:

Matt Reeves, the director behind the smash hit Cloverfield takes a more subdued approach with his retelling of Let The Right One In, offering up an almost shot for shot version that should satisfy American audiences that don’t have the patience for those pesky subtitles.

The flick follows Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee), a young boy that spends his days alone imagining what it would be like to kill the bullies that make his life difficult at school. He dwells on his inability to defend himself, and when he’s not pretending to impale his enemies with a pocket knife he’s alone in his room watching his neighbors with a telescope. He’s isolated and completely alone, that is until Abby (Chloë Grace Moretz) moves in next door.

Abby is an odd 12 year old girl that walks through the cold snow barefoot and doesn’t have the greatest hygiene. The two children strike up a friendship that leads to the kind of love not often found in movies. The sort of blind love that envelops a soul, allowing it to look past even the worst flaws. When Owen finds out his new best friend is a vampire he doesn’t stop loving her. He looks past her affliction.

Matt Reeves does a great job of focusing on the children instead of the secondary characters. He even goes as far as never showing Owen’s mother. In fact most of the adults in the film are nothing more than a blur. Even when they are on screen they are completely overshadowed by the remarkable performances of the films two child leads.

In some ways this remake took it up a notch by focusing more on the children. The story worked better, but the overall style and tone of the film are almost exactly like the original. Another area the this film excels its astounding score. Michael Giacchino’s haunting score sent chills down my spine throughout the film’s runtime and is worth buying. The one thing I didn’t enjoy in this mostly solid picture were the visual effects. Anyone that has seen the original knows what I’m talking about when I say that the pool scene is one of the best kill scenes in horror, and they’ll also understand when I say that Let Me In doesn’t even come close to matching the intensity of that scene. There is also unneeded CGI in the flick that is annoying, but overall these are small complaints for what is a really good film.

Let Me In is a haunting motion picture that highlights the talents of two amazing actors and offers up one of the most touching love stories ever told. Sure, there are to many remakes being made right now, but when a film is this well made it’s impossible not to love it. Let Me In is absolutely a killer film.

The Blu-ray:

Audio/Video: Starz/Anchor Bay releases a fine HD disc. Even with a few scenes that are a little too murky, the overall transfer is strong. Bold, sharp colors and deep blacks serve the moodiness of the film. The Dolby TrueHD track is solid, even though the mix is purposely calm and quiet, the sound is reserved yet punchy when it needs to be.

Commentary: Director Matt Reeves goes solo for this chat and offers up plenty of good info on his adaptation of the novel, the original Swedish film, and some trivia. He’s a little too scene specific which makes for an easy time to follow and switch in and out.

All extras are in HD.

Dissecting Let Me In: This picture-in-picture is the best of both the commentary and the EPK making-of (see below). I say watch this and skip the other extras, as some of the material here is repeated.

From the Inside: A Look at the Making: It’s essentially just an EPK, but it serves up a pretty good deal on the film’s production, to be worth a watch, especially since the cast is interviewed. Runs 17 minutes.

The Art of Special Effects is a six minute piece on the VFX, as is the Car Crash Sequence Step-by-Step, which shows how the camera and stunt were done.

Deleted Scenes: Three scenes, two are okay, but wisely deleted, but then there’s the much-talked about scene where Abby’s back story is told. Good stuff. Switches between SD and HD.

Still Gallery,Trailers, a mini-comic book from Dark Horse, and a Digital Copy round out the extras.

The Film: Rating:

The Blu-ray: Rating: