Let Me In

Directed by Matt Reeves

(R)

***

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Let Me In is that rare Hollywood remake that doesn’t “screw things up by dumbing things down,” said Lou Lumenick in the New York Post. Based on the 2008 Swedish vampire flick Let the Right One In, this “unusually faithful” adaptation turns a very good film into an even better one. Set in a dreary pocket of the Southwest and pivoting on the relationship between a middle-school outcast (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and the 12-year-old bloodsucker who comes to his rescue (Chloe Moretz), the film manages to be both emotionally moving and genuinely frightening. Director Matt Reeves’ “chillingly real” take on this adolescent friendship “makes adult vampire tales Twilight and True Blood look like child’s play,” said Scott Bowles in USA Today. Smit-McPhee and Moretz are terrific—adept at making their “young eyes look as if they’ve seen more than they should.” The story offers few surprises, said A.O. Scott in The New York Times. But the film’s “eerily fascinating” mood will haunt you for days. “Even if you think you’ve had enough of the vampirization of popular culture, find room in your heart for this one.”