Horror Chick: ‘Let Me In’ and the Blessed Vampire Redemption

Horror Chick: ‘Let Me In’ and the Blessed Vampire Redemption

Pity the vampires. They’ve been tucked and slicked and oiled and waxed out of any shred of real dignity. Whatever happened to the grainy, unwashed horror of Dracula? The blood-soaked poetry of Bram Stoker? Nowadays vampires are a joke — walking sex toys with their spackled hair and waxy genitals and teams of rabid publicists who are far scarier than any bloodsucker in history.

And yet for even the most heinous cinematic-genre crimes, redemption can arrive in myriad ways. In this case, it came from Sweden.

Let the Right One In, aka “That Swedish Vampire Movie That Almost No One Saw,” was a marvel. Moody, textured, well-paced, perfectly-acted (by children, no less), and most of all, totally original. The film emancipated vampire-ness from its dungeon of shtick and made it a tragic curse again, a grim, chaotic mess that drove two fantastic characters to do bloody things and make acute choices that, well, you could see yourself making if you happened to be 12 years old and in love with a friggin’ vampire.

Granted, the miracle that was Let the Right One In — both the John Lindqvist novel and the award-winning film — got buried in the U.S., which was fast becoming a hatching ground for a Swedish-mystery-mania that would soon devour our eyeballs (and wallets). Due to some cultural force I will never understand, a dyspeptic trio of Swedish novels has now claimed its place as the new Da Vinci Code (and if those damn Girl With Not a Single Realistic Character Trait books continue their chokehold on this country, I may have to stage some Terry Jones-style burnings).

So it came as a pleasant surprise when Overture Films announced it was remaking Let the Right One In, this time in the U.S. (meaning it would be in English-which honestly wasn’t an issue in the first film at all, except that Americans seem to have a scathing allergy to subtitles).

Even more pleasant was the casting announcement: Chloe Moretz, the “See-You-Next-Tuesday”-uttering savior of Kick-Ass, would be playing the vampire. The father character would be Richard Jenkins, who always plays the hell out of aging, desperate men, and then the boy-really the most crucial character-was the doe-eyed Kodi Smit-McPhee, a.k.a. “that porcelain kid who had to suffer through Viggo Mortensen’s B.O. in The Road.”

Of course, you never know with an American remake of a European film-half the time they’ll toss in a Jonas Brothers cameo plus a crapload of CGI for good measure. But here’s the thing: Let Me In is good. Seriously f&*king good. The mood and granular consistency are there from the first scene, creeping you out while simultaneously drawing you in. Director Matt Reeves (who also did Cloverfield, but we won’t hold that against him-not permanently, anyway) captures the 80s in a way that most filmmakers are afraid to: without a hint of nostalgia. No leg warmers and silly haircuts here-it’s a grim and pulverant time invaded by David Bowie songs (seriously, there is a major Bowie fetish going on with the score of this movie) and fractured ideals, with Reagan’s face beaming incessantly from the TV and Rubix Cubes dominating lonely boyhood hours.

And then there are the kids. These children act their way into a space that 99% of American movie stars can’t even approach. They create a world that children know, and adults still relate to based on niggling memories of what it was like to not be socially obligated to be a jerkoff all the time. The only thing more remarkable than Moretz’s scenes with Smit-McPhee are her scenes with Jenkins. A child playing an adult-in-a-child’s-body is a pretty remarkable thing to achieve-Kirsten Dunst pulled it off in “Interview With the Vampire,” and it was almost frightening to watch (as in, “more frightening than Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt flinging homoeroticism across the screen”). Moretz ups the ante even further-particularly one scene in the hospital, where a single look she gives Jenkins provides around 40 years worth of backstory. Dirty-mouthed chick can act, and she carries this movie as easily as she did those GE M134 miniguns in Kick-Ass.

Let’s just pray that she doesn’t get super famous, go Lohan, and lose it all in a storm of beaver shots and blow. Please, Chloe, we beg you. The agony would be too great.

Melissa Lafsky does like children just not usually on screen.