Let Me In

[boxofslice]

Has anyone seen this yet?  Watched Let The Right One In again during the week so am debating whether to go see the remake at the cinema.  There's been mixed reviews to it with Kermode in particular saying the original film is about kids (with vamps) and the remake a film about vamps (with kids).  It's either this or the Mike Leigh film during the week.

[Jemble Fred]

I should go and see this, just because I'm really keen for the revamped Hammer company to do well. A shame they had to kick-off with a remake – in fact, rather than eschewing their "vampires with big jugs" legacy, I'd like to see them try and make that kind of movie work in the 21st century – but I'm still hopeful that New Hammer could come up with some great stuff.

[lipsink]

Saw 'Let Meh In' last week and found it just about ok. Some nice little new moments introduced

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(The car crash is brilliant)

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and both kids are great.

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Plus I liked how the vampire attacks were much more animated with the little girl jumping around on top of people's back like some mad spider.

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And Elias Koteas is always great (please give this great actor a leading role). But aside from that it just felt pointless, going through the motions, from scene to scene usual remake stuff. The bigger violence and gore feels like an attempt to keep the attention of morons who can't be arsed watching foreign films and who'd get bored during the quieter moments. This lack of subtelty means it loses the original's power but there's still some quite haunting beauty about it. The

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woman who's transformed into a vampire looks like a 28 Days Later zombie

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. Still, not at all a bad film and nowhere near as bad as some horror remakes (Nightmare on Elm Street, The Omen). Not bad at all really. Just pointless.

[Custard]

I read that they've replaced the middle-aged pub-goers with a bodybuilder and a stripper, and made the girl's helper her dad. That turns me off. And the fact that the original is so great

[SavageHedgehog]

There's been mixed reviews to it with Kermode in particular saying the original film is about kids (with vamps) and the remake a film about vamps (with kids). 

Good! The last thing we need is another film which gets everyone stroking their beards, clucking their tongues and saying "oh, you see, the film isn't reaaaaaaaaaallllllly about vampires..."

[lipsink]

I read that they've replaced the middle-aged pub-goers with a bodybuilder and a stripper, and made the girl's helper her dad. That turns me off. And the fact that the original is so great

Nah, the girl's helper isn't her dad in this one. In fact,

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they show an old photo of a young version of the helper standing next to the girl who still looks the same age.

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[Ja'moke]

Nah, the girl's helper isn't her dad in this one. In fact,

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they show an old photo of a young version of the helper standing next to the girl who still looks the same age.

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I was going to say! Making the helper her Dad would have been stupid, seeing as it is heavily implied in Let The Right One In

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that her carer has been with her since he himself was a child.

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[remedial_gash]

I was going to say! Making the helper her Dad would have been stupid, seeing as it is heavily implied in Let The Right One In

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that her carer has been with her since he himself was a child.

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I agree with your interpretation that you spoilered, but in an interview with the author, of both the book and the writer of the screenplay, he revealed that    
Håkan

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was a paedo in the book.

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.

I haven't read it either.

Gash
x

[Custard]

That's interesting, people's different takes on him, as i thought he wasn't so much

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a paedo as a previous boy who fell in love with her, and now spent his days doing her bidding. She seemed very cold towards him, so i thought that was the fate awaiting our modern-day, blonde-haired hero.

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Basically, what i'm saying is, she gets about.

[remedial_gash]

That's interesting, people's different takes on him, as i thought he wasn't so much

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a paedo as a previous boy who fell in love with her, and now spent his days doing her bidding. She seemed very cold towards him, so i thought that was the fate awaiting our modern-day, blonde-haired hero.

[close]

Basically, what i'm saying is, she gets about.

I think that many people felt the same way as you - I certainly did, but according to the author, he just took a single strand (the love strand) from his book and binned the more complicated stuff. I haven't read the book, though I think it was a hit in Sweden, where he was a standup appara... I think alot was lost in adaptation.

Gash
x

[The Widow of Brid]

In the book it's not ambiguous at all

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he's very definitely and overtly a paedophile. We're told that he lost his job due to this being discovered and he's shown masturbating at the thought of children at one point. He's written as a repellent but pitiable figure who alternates between seeing himself as the 'good' kind of paedophile (not a violent rapist or trafficker in child prostitutes, basically) and self loathing.

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Oh, also, for people who've seen the film(s)

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Are we using the descriptive 'she' for convenience. Or did the question of Eli's gender get dropped for the adaption too?

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[lipsink]

Oh, also, for people who've seen the film(s)

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Are we using the descriptive 'she' for convenience. Or did the question of Eli's gender get dropped for the adaption too?

[close]

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In 'Let Me In' she seems to say "I'm not a girl" a few more times to make up for the fact we never see the shot of her crotch, we just see the boy looking shocked when he sneaks a peek at her getting dressed.

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[remedial_gash]

No, in the film it was shown explicitly that Eli

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had a scar instead of genitals, just not that he was castrated in a bloody fashion, as I'm lead to believe the book does. I haven't read it, and am in no way suggesting anything against literature, I'd just read an interview, and tried to inform people and nudge them towards that which I haven't read.

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.

Gash
x

Edit: I wrote as you were writing lipsink. Soz.

[Ja'moke]

That's interesting, people's different takes on him, as i thought he wasn't so much

Spoiler alert

a paedo as a previous boy who fell in love with her, and now spent his days doing her bidding. She seemed very cold towards him, so i thought that was the fate awaiting our modern-day, blonde-haired hero.

[close]

Basically, what i'm saying is, she gets about.

That's what I choose to believe too, and I think the film (the original, I haven't seen Let Me In yet) implies that.

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The paedo version has put me off from reading the book because I never saw the character that way.

[close]

[chocky909]

I just saw this and it's actually pretty good in isolation but the main thing I'm left thinking about is the original film director. He doesn't seem to have been credited at all for this film. It seems that this is officially a seperate adaptation of the book but it follows the film very closely with just a few changes. I haven't read the book but it would seem to me that Let Me In has a lot more in common with the first film that the book. Not a shot for shot remake but very loyal to the plot, pacing and tone.

If I was Tomas Alfredson, the original director, I'd be a little pissed that some other director had taken a very good adaptation, tweaked it just a little and taken full credit as seems to have happened. That's a bit shit isn't it?

[Rev]

He wasn't happy with the idea of it, which is probably why Matt Reeves was so insistent that this was a new adaptation rather than a remake of the film.  As you indicate, though, that's complete bullshit.  This film wouldn't be anything like it is had the earlier version not existed, and at times it is all but shot-for-shot.

That said, it isn't at all bad.  There are only a few changes, and although it's mainly a case of things being removed rather than added, it doesn't feel like a compromised version of the story.  I think I prefer

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how the carer ends up having to resort to the acid

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in this version, as I thought that it was it a bit hasty in the original.  There were options!

[chocky909]

Speaking of

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the acid

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, I thought the prologue was almost completely pointless, suspiciously like it was done just to be different from the first film. I'm quite glad they got rid of

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the cats

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though.

[Paaaaul]

I think I prefer

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how the carer ends up having to resort to the acid

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in this version, as I thought that it was it a bit hasty in the original.  There were options!

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I think the scene with the acid is brilliant in the Let The Right One In. The fact he goes for the acid so quickly shows how drained he is by Eli and he goes for suicide. The following scene in the hospital with Eli is the unspoken breaking of their bond and her realisation that she needs a new keeper/parent/slave

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[Ignatius_S]

He wasn't happy with the idea of it, which is probably why Matt Reeves was so insistent that this was a new adaptation rather than a remake of the film...

This is going from memory, but I think when the Hammer version was announced, one person close to the project (one of the producers?) said it was going to be a 'remake' – and then after all the publicity for Hammer, there  was clarification from Hammer that it had bought the rights for the English-language film adaptation, rather than being a remake.

Again, this is going from memory, but I think it was suggested that the person who made that first statement did it to exploit the success of Let The Right One In, which was winning plaudits at the time.

Actually, I'd be interested to learn just when Hammer did start taking an interest in the book.