Film4 recently screened 'Let the right one in' over here and i watched it.
The subtitles from swedish didn't bother me as i have enjoyed plenty of subtitled chinese films, but i did find the film a bit of a slow-burner storywise. Anyone expecting vampiric action is going to be sorely disappointed as the vampire explanations were in dialogue between the little boy and his new-found friend.
Chloe was a good choice to portray this character though in a remake and i'm glad she's been signed to play Emily the Strange as well.
[Edit]: Review of 'Let Me In' courtesy current.com.
I hear Let Me In has a lot more action and Let The Right One In, and none of the vampire explanations were in dialogue. Also, what I liked about Let Me In was they made Abby a frightening monster, a classic vampire in every sense in the word. Yet, you could see still why Owen still falls for her.
Been waiting to see this movie, and my local theatre isn't playing it 
Looks like I might have to make a 60mile drive, or else I'm waiting for DVD
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Normally I don't like "remade" movies, especially ones that are based on recent originals. So when I heard "Let Me In" was based on a Swedish film made just 2 years ago I initially figured it was going to be a cheesy knock-off.
Fortunately I was pleasantly surprised. This new movie was good enough that I want to see the original now just to compare it for relative goodness. Turns out the guy who wrote the original novel and screenplay for "Let the Right One In" (John Lindqvist) was also involved in the screenplay for this new movie so it make sense that they are very close and true to the source material.
*** mild spoiler alert ***
I loved the simplicity and strength of the characters. The story was straightforward but mysterious enough to make you want to care what was going to happen. I loved how this was technically a story involving a vampire but it more like how two emotionally fragile people would deal with horrors of vampirism as an abstract thing that would stand in the way of a "typical" relationship.
Admittedly the ending itself wasn't too hard to predict, but the film was interesting enough that it was cool to see how it unfolded to reach that ending. I'm sure many people remember the classic scene from Star Wars where Anakin makes the final choice to "fall" to the Dark Side by choosing to help the Emperor instead of Mace Windu. Well let's just say this film's equivalent of that scene blows the Star Wars scene out of the water for overall coolness.
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These American remakes smack of pure laziness on the part of filmmakers here. Every other movie now is either a remake or a 3D film. That being said, Let The Right One In was better than the remake in every way.
"They've got us surrounded again, the poor bastards." - General Creighton W. Abrams
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As I said "Let Me In" was good enough that I'm now genuinely interested in seeing the original to see how it actually compares. For what it's worth I never even heard of "Let the Right One In" until I started reading reviews of the remake. *shrugs*|
Originally Posted by Comeuppance
These American remakes smack of pure laziness on the part of filmmakers here. Every other movie now is either a remake or a 3D film. That being said, Let The Right One In was better than the remake in every way.
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I normally hate remakes because most of them do in fact suck. But again since the actual author of the original novel and screenplay was involved in this remake I have to think it's better than the typical remake "laziness" you describe. If the original is truly better "in every way" then I figure this Americanized version will only bring more fame and money to its author. I don't see that as a bad thing...
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It's definitely a bad thing if it leads to more remakes. If filmmakers can't come up with original ideas, they should get new jobs. Heck, anybody can "re-imagine" another individual's idea. The true talent of a great many filmmakers these days is the ability to sucker consumers into paying to view the same movie twice.
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Originally Posted by Lothic
As I said "Let Me In" was good enough that I'm now genuinely interested in seeing the original to see how it actually compares. For what it's worth I never even heard of "Let the Right One In" until I started reading reviews of the remake. *shrugs*
I normally hate remakes because most of them do in fact suck. But again since the actual author of the original novel and screenplay was involved in this remake I have to think it's better than the typical remake "laziness" you describe. If the original is truly better "in every way" then I figure this Americanized version will only bring more fame and money to its author. I don't see that as a bad thing... |
"They've got us surrounded again, the poor bastards." - General Creighton W. Abrams
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I know it FEELS like most movies these days are remakes, but that's not really true... just take a look at the actual list of movies from this year: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_in_film Heck, 7 of the 10 top grossing films this year are originals (or sequels).|
Originally Posted by Comeuppance
These American remakes smack of pure laziness on the part of filmmakers here. Every other movie now is either a remake or a 3D film. That being said, Let The Right One In was better than the remake in every way.
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As to the movie itself, having been a fan of the original Swedish film (and its slow-burning buildup), I have to say... I was a big fan of this too. While it was a little-Hollywood-ized (more gore, more action, overall MORE) it still kept (mostly) to the very simplistic feel of the first. The tone and relationships in the American version I felt were a bit better. I actually understood why some characters were acting the way they were. I had an actual FEEL for the fact this was set in the 80s, whereas the Swedish film... I never picked up on that.
The CG stuff in this film... <sigh> I had the same problem I had with it in the Swedish film (especially the cats). It was just too over the top and notably unreal. Overall though, I really think this film is one of the rare exceptions to the tragedy that is typical of American-remakes.
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You're absolutely right. Hollywood needs to stay the bastion of original material that it is today!
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Originally Posted by Comeuppance
It's definitely a bad thing if it leads to more remakes. If filmmakers can't come up with original ideas, they should get new jobs. Heck, anybody can "re-imagine" another individual's idea. The true talent of a great many filmmakers these days is the ability to sucker consumers into paying to view the same movie twice.
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I'd say the Authors participation in this redux saves it from being filed under the typical 'lazy Hollywood' remakes catagory. Sounds authentic in tone and vision, and if he the Author is happy who am i to argue.
I'll draw the line at Bollywood's musical interpretation 'Let the right naan in' though. 
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I'd agree with you if this remake had NOTHING to do with the original author.|
Originally Posted by Comeuppance
It's definitely a bad thing if it leads to more remakes. If filmmakers can't come up with original ideas, they should get new jobs. Heck, anybody can "re-imagine" another individual's idea. The true talent of a great many filmmakers these days is the ability to sucker consumers into paying to view the same movie twice.
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But in this case this remake was basically WRITTEN by the original author.
Hard to be mad at him if he wanted an opportunity to make American movie money. As I said I had NEVER even heard of the original. Now I'm likely to buy the original movie and novel to read. I'd say that's a win for John Lindqvist.
Stop being so blind to these things to automatically assume "remake = evil".
Sure -most- of them are, but not all. *shrugs*
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I never would have known about the Swedish film if not for this one. If the purpose for this remake is to get people to be curious about films we don't normally hear about, than this film succeeded in my case and in the case of several friends of mine who now want to see the Swedish film. I'm all for supporting good works, so I don't mind paying for a movie twice if I like it enough.
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Originally Posted by Comeuppance
It's definitely a bad thing if it leads to more remakes. If filmmakers can't come up with original ideas, they should get new jobs. Heck, anybody can "re-imagine" another individual's idea. The true talent of a great many filmmakers these days is the ability to sucker consumers into paying to view the same movie twice.
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If you can find the sentence where I quoted the process as being "evil", feel free to post it. Blind indeed.
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Originally Posted by Lothic
I'd agree with you if this remake had NOTHING to do with the original author.
But in this case this remake was basically WRITTEN by the original author. Hard to be mad at him if he wanted an opportunity to make American movie money. As I said I had NEVER even heard of the original. Now I'm likely to buy the original movie and novel to read. I'd say that's a win for John Lindqvist. Stop being so blind to these things to automatically assume "remake = evil". Sure -most- of them are, but not all. *shrugs* |
"They've got us surrounded again, the poor bastards." - General Creighton W. Abrams
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Of course, you know that since you've hype up the Swedish film in my eyes, this now means that when I do end up seeing "Let the Right One In" and I find it to suck, I will blame you for it. |
Originally Posted by Comeuppance
These American remakes smack of pure laziness on the part of filmmakers here. Every other movie now is either a remake or a 3D film. That being said, Let The Right One In was better than the remake in every way.
|
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You certainly did not use the word 'evil' specifically. But everything you HAVE said about it clearly implies you blindly assume remakes are universally bad and things to be hated, which they clearly aren't.|
Originally Posted by Comeuppance
If you can find the sentence where I quoted the process as being "evil", feel free to post it. Blind indeed.
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If all you can do to support your otherwise viable point is quibble about which descriptive word I used to describe your semi-irrational stand on this then I think you need to go back to the drawing board. You've chosen to hate on this particular remake based on faulty conclusions and knee-jerk assumptions. All I'm suggesting is that you ought to judge things on their own merits, not on blind assumptions.
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I don't know, if they rolled out a bunch of comic book movies that were recreations of the best stories, I would make sweet sweet love to those films and give them my money.
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Originally Posted by Comeuppance
It's definitely a bad thing if it leads to more remakes. If filmmakers can't come up with original ideas, they should get new jobs. Heck, anybody can "re-imagine" another individual's idea. The true talent of a great many filmmakers these days is the ability to sucker consumers into paying to view the same movie twice.
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I know of people whom after watching the crappy 'Clash of the Titans' remake specifically went out, rented, watched and then bought on Blu-Ray the original 1982 masterpiece in preference.
Its much better.
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It's funny how that works: |
Originally Posted by Mothers_Love
I know of people whom after watching the crappy 'Clash of the Titans' remake specifically went out, rented, watched and then bought on Blu-Ray the original 1982 masterpiece in preference.
Its much better. |
If even a crappy remake can HELP an original imagine what a good remake of an obscure foreign film can do.
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It came in 8th and made a mere $5.1 million so if you want to see it, move quick to do so, or it's a rental.
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Meh. Every film in history is a re-make of one of the seven basic plotlines. Why go see any of them?|
Originally Posted by Comeuppance
These American remakes smack of pure laziness on the part of filmmakers here. Every other movie now is either a remake or a 3D film.
|
I personally don't give a rat's keister about whether something is a remake or not. I care about if it's GOOD.
-np
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It's very American not to watch a live-action film subtitled, and sometimes even dubbed since syncing mouth movements tend to mean rewrites to fit the dialog to the mouth.
That leaves recreating the film from scratch, whether it's J-Horror, French comedy, Argentina Horror or a Swedish Vampire drama. If it's done with respect to the original source and if the original creators had some input in this remade version great.
If subtitles aren't a problem for you, by all means watch the original yourself. But if there is a unique and original film in a foreign language the only way a lot of people in the US will watch it is in it's remake version. Even a dub of the original movie would likely only play in "art houses" and not the megaplexes.
The only "art house" near me closed earlier this year and the chain that owned said they would be showing those films at their nearby megaplex. That lasted about a month and now instead of four off market films playing for a few weeks at a time, we are lucky to have one lasting more than a week.
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Sadly that doesn't really surprise me. Even I had to read a review or two and watch a few previews to figure out enough about this movie to decide I wanted to see it. I'm guessing most people are giving it a few seconds of thought and giving up on it because it's not the kind of film that makes itself instantly recognizable to the masses. |
Originally Posted by Amy_Amp
It came in 8th and made a mere $5.1 million so if you want to see it, move quick to do so, or it's a rental.
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Then again when you check IMDB the original movie (Let the Right One In) apparently only made a total of $7.2 million worldwide so the remake making $5.1 million on its opening weekend is, relatively speaking, not that bad. You figure it'll probably make another $5-10 million in the following weeks in the theater and maybe like another $5-10 million in total DVD sales.
It's too bad a movie like this won't do better at the box office, but it's done better than the original alone would have.
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So apparently there are two different versions of LtROI? A theatrical release that's "teh awsumest horror movie EVAR" and a DVD where the subtitles were poorly translated? I must have rented the latter, as my friend and I ended up shutting the thing off after 20 minutes. The opening sequence of...
SPOILER
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a little boy, in nothing but his underwear, acting out scenes from Deliverance with a knife in front of his bedroom mirror was bad enough. Then for 18 of the next 20 minutes, the movie stumbles along and nothing happens.
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END SPOILER
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Is Let the Right One In really that obscure? The only reason I even bothered looking into it were numerous reviews that called it the best horror movie in the last 10 years. Sorta like... whatwasthatotheroverratedmoviecalled... The Host getting ranked so high on sci-fi lists. Hell, I (regretfully) bought The Host at Wal-Mart after all the hype.
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Originally Posted by Lothic
It's funny how that works:
If even a crappy remake can HELP an original imagine what a good remake of an obscure foreign film can do. |
Tales of Judgment. Also here, instead of that other place.
good luck D.B.B.
This movie is what a vampire romance should be like. Take notes, Mormon housewives...
Just saw this, and realized I forgot what a good vampire film is like. Hell, this is a great film period. All actors, especially Chloe Mortez and Kodi Smit-McPhee, did a wonderous job in sucking you into this film about a bullied 12-year old boy who becomes infactuated by his new neigbor's "daughter", and the story leaves you satisfied and even lets you see what comes next without need for a sequel. I hear this film is a remake of the reknowned Swedish horror film "Let the right one in", and I could only hope it did that film justice, as I hadn't seen it. Having seen this, I'm more than curious about it, and will look for it for my personal annual Halloween horror filmfest.