(2010) Don't let this one in; let the other, the right one, in - the original Swedish film, Låt den Rätte Komma In (Let the Right One In). After seeing John Ajvide Linqvist's bewitching love story of a prepubescent lamia and a boy wanting revenge, director/writer Matt Reeves's remake as Romeo and the Vampiress is a disappointment.

Set in a snowy Los Alamos, NM, in March 1983 with President Ronald Reagan's voice in the background - "There is sin in this world …" - as a patient is rushed to the hospital with disfiguring acid burns on his face and torso, are we supposed to associate the location with atom bombs, the Cold War with the Evil Empire, nuclear winter (too much frozen precipitation for New Mexico in March), the revolution of Republicanism and the religious right's taking over America?

After a police officer (Elias Koteas) speaks briefly to the patient, leaving a pen and notepad, he answers the phone down the hall only to be interrupted when a nurse screams, finding the patient has leapt from the window to his death, ten stories below in the snow. Printed on the notepad are the words: "IM SORY ABBY."

This scene takes place two weeks after 12-year-old Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee) makes acquaintance with Abby (Chloë Grace Moretz) in the courtyard in the evening after she and her "father" (Richard Jenkins) have moved into the upper-apartment next to where he lives with his mother. Abby is unusual in that she walks barefoot in the snow and almost immediately tells Owen: "Just so you know, I can't be your friend."

Owen needs a friend: his parents have separated in the process of getting a divorce while his mother drinks and listens to religious programs; he uses his telescope to peer into other people's windows; at school he's bullied and taunted (called "girl" for being scrawny and not dressing out for swimming in PE) by Kenny and his two pals.

When Owen asks her age, Abby answers: "Twelve more or less," but for a very long time. After she impresses him by solving a Rubik's cube, she offers advice about dealing with the bullies: "You have to hit back hard … harder than you dare." They communicate through a common wall by Morse code.

On the other side of the wall (from which Owen sometimes can hear screaming), Abby's guardian requests of her: "Please don't see that boy again." Once her favorite, now grown old, he obtains blood from victims for her and disposes of corpses.

"Would you still like me even if I wasn't a girl?" she asks Owen. Able to fly, after leaving the hospital where she sees her guardian for the last time, she comes to Owen's bedroom window, asks permission to come inside, commands him not to look at her, removes her clothes, and gets into bed, cold and naked beside him. He asks her if she'd like to go steady with him to which she says she's not a girl: "I'm nothing."

On an outing to an ice pond, the PE teacher has a really bad day with his students, including Owen. Taking Abby to a secret location, Own tells Abby to close her eyes as he intentionally cuts his thumb to form a pact with her, but at the sight of his blood she transforms into a vampire. The rest of the movie is pretty much a blood-and-gore horror picture, lacking the original's nuances with deft touches of humor.

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Copyright © 2010 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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