Ten Years Later review of LTROI and LMI

PeteMork · Post by **PeteMork** » Thu Aug 06, 2020 5:04 pm

Here's an interesting comparison of the two films by someone who obviously didn't do his homework:

https://goombastomp.com/let-me-in-vs-le ... ht-one-in/

PeteMork · Post by **PeteMork** » Thu Aug 06, 2020 5:17 pm

Here's just one of many places he's completely off the mark in describing the motives of JALs 'real Eli' (Abby):

"...to the naked eye Abby appears to be caring and loving of Owen, but under further investigation, she’s actually quite sinister and devious."

dongregg · Post by **dongregg** » Thu Aug 06, 2020 7:20 pm

Rubbish. Call it an excess of loyalty to TA's film, but I don't need no stinkin' remake.

CyberGhostface · Post by **CyberGhostface** » Fri Aug 07, 2020 1:34 am

It really is amazing to me how Let the Right One In is still remembered and talked about while Let Me In is all but forgotten except as a footnote to the Swedish film/book. Most times it’s the opposite.

Like when AMC did their ‘History of Horror’ series they just talked Let the Right One In and even brought on Lina. I don’t think they even mentioned the remake. (Edit: It’s here)

As for this review I just skimmed it but...

Reeves takes a bold and critical step in shooting an almost shot-for-shot remake of the Swedish vampire flick.

There’s nothing bold about that. The bold thing was doing that and lying to everyone that you were going back to the novel and then taking the easy way out.

dongregg · Post by **dongregg** » Fri Aug 07, 2020 1:42 am

Right. And the reviewer's statement that Reeves didn't do it for the money doesn't fly.

PeteMork · Post by **PeteMork** » Fri Aug 07, 2020 2:47 am

CyberGhostface wrote: ↑
Fri Aug 07, 2020 1:34 am
It really is amazing to me how Let the Right One In is still remembered and talked about while Let Me In is all but forgotten except as a footnote to the Swedish film/book. Most times it’s the opposite.

Like when AMC did their ‘History of Horror’ series they just talked Let the Right One In and even brought on Lina. I don’t think they even mentioned the remake. (Edit: It’s here)

As for this review I just skimmed it but...

Reeves takes a bold and critical step in shooting an almost shot-for-shot remake of the Swedish vampire flick.
There’s nothing bold about that. The bold thing was doing that and lying to everyone that you were going back to the novel and then taking the easy way out.

Thanks for reminding me about this review. If Ricky Fernandes da Conceição had merely looked around a bit and found this before he posted, perhaps he wouldn't have embarrassed himself quit so much. Lina is merely telling us what she was told when she played the part of Eli, by both JAL and TA. If you can't believe the author, the director, and the actor as to Eli's motives, who can you believe? 'Let me In' tells a completely different story; one imagined by Reeves.

Jameron · Post by **Jameron** » Fri Aug 07, 2020 11:33 am

PeteMork wrote: ↑
Thu Aug 06, 2020 5:17 pm
Here's just one of many places he's completely off the mark in describing the motives of JALs 'real Eli' (Abby):

"...to the naked eye Abby appears to be caring and loving of Owen, but under further investigation, she’s actually quite sinister and devious."

I never did understand that take of Abby's motives from anyone that has thought about the film enough to write a review about it. I think it falls under the heading of 'expected tropes' in the American film industry, that's not a put down btw, all film industries use tropes ... where would Japanese and Korean horror films be without long haired revengeful teenage ghost girls?

. A Cabin in the Woods is a film dedicated to exposing tropes used in films and the consequences when those tropes aren't forthcoming the Gods at the end rising up and destroying the world represent the audience and critics taking to the internet to shred the film they just saw because it didn't deliver what they were expecting to get. Tropes have their uses as a shortcut to explaining a character's motives but sometimes people see tropes when they aren't there, I believe Let Me In is a victim of this. When we see that photostrip of Abby with a young Thomas we understand immediately that Thomas was once in Owen's position, happy in a blooming relationship. The existing tropes of a horror genre film would imply that Abby, who we just learned was a vampire, would have nefarious motives in befriending young boys that would lead to them becoming ensnared as Reinfeld characters, meaning that Owen would follow in an unending cycle of usury relationships. Eli in the novel (and heavily implied in Tomas' film) did in fact have nefarious motives for enlisting Håkan as a "helper" but he was already middle aged when they met so the recurring cycle does not apply in that case. What I saw evidenced in that photostrip in Let Me In was the heartbreaking results of being a twelve year old vampire who could never find someone to be with due to the ephemeral nature of humans. Maybe this is due to me not being a huge fan of American horror films and so was blissfully indifferent to many tropes, or maybe because I already had a fixed idea about Eli and Oskar's relationship and automatically applied that to Abby and Owen, who knows? Many viewers of Let Me In had no prior knowledge of the story other than the trailers that hyped it up as a horror film and so would be open to (or even expectant for, à la Cabin in the Woods) horror tropes. Interestingly, as I'm sure you're all aware, Let The Right One In was billed as a drama in Sweden, it was only outside of Sweden that the "horror" label was attached to it, when something is labelled as a horror story the last thing the horror audience expect is an honest relationship between the vampire and the human "victim".

Just my thoughts.

.

metoo · Post by **metoo** » Fri Aug 07, 2020 4:25 pm

I suspect that the "expected trope" phenomenon is the origin of the idea that Håkan is the previous Oskar which apparently flourished in the discussion fora after LTROI had been released. (I knew about neither the film nor the novel before 2011, so I missed all of this.)

While I think the film doesn't suggest that Håkan is the previous Oskar, it doesn't do much to contradict the idea either. Is this by design, or is it just an effect of TA knowing the novel very well while not being very familiar with horror tropes and therefore not realising the possibility of this interpretation?

I believe the latter.

Pissball · Post by **Pissball** » Tue Aug 11, 2020 3:25 pm

This guy is reviewing the BOOK (with Hakan's background and all) and yet he's still betting on the New Hakan Theory. People seem to love this idea.
It almost looks like Eli has a supernatural power of manipulation, as he presents Hakan as a pure victim and not as a villain or a man who succumbs to HIS dark side on his own. Or that she is masterminding everything.

Even if you establish Eli's dark side as a predator (which she is) that doesn't need to lead it to the cycle thing regarding Oskar imo, but for most people it does.
Putting that aside, it's a good review/essay.

PS: In the pool scene, Oskar is powerless again after all, and is rescued by the most powerful version of Eli. That could also lead to the "manipulated-codependent" Oskar and the "Eli is the drug" idea that the guy is going for, since Oskar is (like a drug addict without his fix) a helpless soul with no will who cannot live literally without Eli.
The Eli Roth's take rings much better to me, that the 'monster' comes in where the 'people' failed.

We, The Infected

Ten Years Later review of LTROI and LMI

Ten Years Later review of LTROI and LMI

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Re: Ten Years Later review of LTROI and LMI

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