Let The Right One In REDUX

2008's Let The Right One In
2010's Let Me In
Let Me In (R) ★★½

It's no surprise that Hollywood decided to remake 2008's Let The Right One In, a Swedish import that has garnered more than its fair share of fans during the past 2 years. The original, with its bracingly original story and flashy Gothic decors, had something that could please even subtitle deractors. The remake -directed by Cloverfield's Matt Reeves- is surprisingly stale and has a few stunning surprises up its sleeves, it's a real shame that I was expecting almost everything coming in the way of plot (I mean it IS a remake after all). The problem is that Reeves doesn't try anything new or ingenious and instead decides to follow the same atmospheric hypnotics that made the 2008 movie so popular.

There's something very wrong in remaking a film that was already good in the first place. Don't get me wrong stuff like what Scorsese did with The Departed is great, there Scorsese took the source and twisted it upsid down to make well, a Martin Scorsese movie. I'm also lost for wods as to why critics have fallen for the remake so damn much, then again maybe they didn't have the chance to see the original and some film critics -more notably Lou Lumenick- have come out and stated their overall enjoyment with the fact that they didn't see the original source material.

The story, which is about a 13 year old vampire girl that starts a unique friendship with a bullied neighbourhood boy, is a real genre twister that re-invigorated the vampire genre, coincidentally the same year the first Twilight movie came out. You won't see any Bella or Edward sappiness in the original or -even- remake. There's no love triangle or high school dramatics. The stakes at here are real and the feelings psychological. I just think it is somewhat of a useless thing to remake such a film in an almost similarly told way. Reeves could have put his own spin and made something a bit more beneficial for both the fans of the original and newcomer, alas that does not happen at the least bit. If you've seen the original one, skip this one but if you haven't check it out or rent Let The Right One In.

Casey Affleck goes noir & psychopatic in Michael Winterbottom's 'Killer Inside Me'

The controversy arising from this film is not without merit. The Killer Inside Me, finely directed by Michael Winterbottom (24 Hour Party People, A Mighty Heart) has graphic scenes of violence against women, all done and justified by its main character Lou Ford- brilliantly played by Casey Affleck. Based on a popular 1952 Jim Thompson novel, the film is a dark nightmare through a psychopathic mind. Stanley Kubrick once said the novel was 'probably the most chilling and believable first person story of a criminally warped mind I have ever encountered', which is a lot coming from a legendary director known for his grizzly and dark pictures. The high lit scenes only reinforce the darkness that hides behind the light & make the picture all the more cruel and torturous.

There are two particular scenes that everybody is talking about. One involves Lou hitting a woman's face -Jessica Alba- so hard and so strong that he ends up drilling a hole in her cheek. Another involves punching his pregnant wife in the stomach, so hard that the water ends up breaking and the wife -played by Kate Hudson- falters to her death in the kitchen room floor. Because the story is told in a sympathetic way towards its main character, there is a kind of easiness that unfolds in the film's linear structure. Lou is a man that believes that everything he has done is justifiable and compulsively right.
The film is at times slow and dull but its overall power gives it a small, menacing grip as it reaches its violent finale. Casy Affleck -a more talented actor than brother Ben- gives one of the year's best performances and only raises his reputation as one of the most underrated and gifted actors around at the moment. I can name hundreds of more enjoyable and satisfying movies but I cannot name as many that have this much of a punch in the gut effect. If the film falls short of the books ambitions, its interest lies in the darkened room its main character likes to lock himself in. Affleck is scary good in this one and he does the source material proud. Too bad the problems in plotting and editing prevent it from going even higher and stronger.