31 Days of Horror: Let Me In (2010) — Innocence, Violence, and the Terror of Being Seen

Let Me In (2010)

Directed by: Matt Reeves

Written by: Matt Reeves

Starring: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Chloë Grace Moretz, Elias Koteas, Richard Jenkins

Release Date: October 1, 2010

Matt Reeves’ Let Me In (2010) reimagines Let the Right One In with haunting precision — a gothic tale of loneliness, love, and the violence required to survive.

As I watched the American reimagining of the Swedish vampire masterpiece Let the Right One In, retitled Let Me In, in the theater 15 years ago, a pair of troglodytic morons giggled in the theater at moments that should have broken their hearts. They giggled when Chloë Grace Moretz’s twelve-year-old vampire leapt upon her prey. They giggled when her weary caretaker, played by Richard Jenkins, committed murder to feed her hunger. Most disturbingly, they giggled during a scene of innocence and affection — a rare moment of human connection in a story about monsters.

Director Matt Reeves (Cloverfield) approaches this stark Swedish story with reverence and sorrow. Let Me In is a vampire film about loneliness — one that replaces the thrill of the hunt with the ache of being seen and accepted. Its young stars, Chloë Grace Moretz and Kodi Smit-McPhee, lure you in with their innocence and devastate you with their empathy and quiet ferocity.

The Boy Who Watches and the Girl Who Can’t Grow Up

Kodi Smit-McPhee plays Owen, a bullied and isolated boy living with his alcoholic mother in a lonely Los Alamos apartment complex. His days are filled with humiliation at school and empty silences at home. He steals money to buy candy — Now & Laters — and dreams of revenge.

Then, one cold night, a strange barefoot girl named Abby (Moretz) moves in next door. She tells Owen they can’t be friends, yet soon they’re talking through the walls that divide their apartments. She never appears during the day. She walks through snow without shoes. The man Owen assumes is her father (Richard Jenkins) keeps nocturnal habits and carries an aura of dread.

The truth is clear to us long before it is to Owen: Abby is a vampire. But she’s also a child, trapped in an endless cycle of dependence and death.

Their friendship — tender, awkward, pure — blooms in the cold, each finding in the other what life has denied them: compassion.

A Remake Done Right

Remakes are often unnecessary. But Matt Reeves avoids the usual pitfalls by grounding Let Me In in atmosphere, casting, and emotional honesty.

Chloë Grace Moretz and Kodi Smit-McPhee bring something both familiar and fresh to their roles. Their chemistry is remarkable — a mix of trust, fear, and curiosity that elevates every quiet exchange. They convey the aching awareness of children forced to grow up too soon, yet still yearning for connection.

Supporting them are two understated yet vital performances: Richard Jenkins as Abby’s desperate caretaker, and Elias Koteas as a detective who slowly uncovers the grisly truth. Koteas, calm and mournful, becomes the film’s conscience — a presence that grounds the horror in something heartbreakingly human.

Beauty in the Bleakness

Let Me In is stunningly violent at times and almost meditative at others. Reeves’s direction captures the haunting quiet of snow and shadow, the warmth of flickering lamps, and the sudden terror of blood.

The violence lands harder because it’s surrounded by moments of stillness — stolen glances, whispered conversations, a shared smile through a window. Reeves reminds us that horror works best when it’s built from empathy.

Those two giggling theatergoers were wrong 15 years ago and they are still wrong today. Let Me In deserves a serious audience, one willing to look past the blood and see the tenderness underneath. For those who do, the film rewards them with one of the most hauntingly beautiful and emotionally rich horror stories of the 21st century.

Movie Review: Cloverfield

Cloverfield (2008) 

Directed by Matt Reeves

Written by Drew Goddard 

Starring T.J Miller, Mike Vogel, Jessica Lucas, Lizzy Caplan, Odette Yustman

Release Date January 18th, 2008

Published January 18th, 2008

The monster movie has grand history. Not just the great Godzilla but the subtext that accompanied the great lizard. Frankenstein's monster was both a force of horror and a force of subtext, addressing repression, discrimination and the dangers of mob mentality. The modern monster movie has had less and less on the subtextual front with movies like The Mist reveling in the technology necessary in creating giant monsters rather than crafting a message to work in behind the monster.

Now comes Cloverfield from producer J.J Abrams and director Matt Reeves. Much like The Mist, Cloverfield is mostly about technology and movie magic and not so much about stimulating the brain or making audiences think.

There is however, some visual allusion to deeper meaning. Because Cloverfield is about a monster destroying New York, crushing skyscrapers and such, the spector of 9/11 lingers in the margins. Director Matt Reeves makes a very conscious decision to use imagery of that day in his monster movie and these moments are highly discomfiting. For all the great subtextual moments in the history of the monster movie, some movies aren't worthy of such serious underpinnings or deeper meanings. Cloverfield with it's cardboard characters and giant monster motif simply is too superfluous to refer to our nations greatest tragedy without seeming to demean it.

Rob (Michael Stalh David) is leaving New York for Japan. His closest friends are throwing him a huge going away party. While Rob's brother Jason (Mike Vogel) runs around causing trouble for his long suffering girlfriend Lilly (Jessica Lucas), Rob's best friend Hud (T.J Miller) has been left with the task of filming the whole event for posterity. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the guest of honor, his friends have invited his ex Beth (Odette Yustman) to the party. Actually, Rob and Beth are supposed to be just friends but we know that they have slept together and that Rob screwed things up really bad, so bad that Beth arrives at the party with a date.

All of this personal angst is rendered meaningless when an explosion rocks the apartment building and suddenly the head of the statue of liberty is flung down the street. Soon a mass evacuation is underway and our new friends are frantically running the streets with Hud filming the whole time as is typical of our youtube culture.

I must say that though I find Cloverfield to be shallow, it is quite thrilling at times. Crossing The Blair Witch Project's shaky cam with a big budget CGI monster, Cloverfield creates a viscderally exciting atmosphere where this giant moster attack feels real. Director Matt Reeves made some interesting choices in allowing actor T.J Miller who plays Hud, to actually shoot some of the film with his little handheld camera. Most of the action is captured with a steadicam and skilled operators but all of the action feels authentic in it's slightly goofy, monster movie way.

I'm still hung up on the shallow allusions to 9/11. While I appreciate the history of moster movies and great subtext and metaphor but something about Cloverfield feels unworthy of the tragedy it samples more than metaphorically reflects. Cloverfield plays like 9/11 movie mashed up with a monster movie and the two elements coalesce like Weird Al Yankovich mashed with Radiohead.

That said, I cannot deny that Cloverfield is exciting and compelling. I was caught up in the films run and hide and run some more plot and at a mere 80 minutes, Cloverfield does not overstaty it's welcome. Puddle deep with uncomfortable allusions, Cloverfield is little more than a modern monster movie with new age movie magic employed to good effect. I recommend it for anyone with a strong stomach, all that shaky cam can tend to make some a little queasy.