Let Me In / Let the Right One In

Also over the weekend I saw Let Me In, a remake of a 2008 Swedish vampire movie called Let the Right One In. I'm a fan of the Swedish one, so I thought I'd give the Americanized version a chance, see what they do differently, see what they succeed or fail in, in comparison. The thing is though, I liked the new version, mainly because it was so similar to the 2008 one. In other words, when you remake a good movie plot detail for plot detail, money shot for money shot, without having to compromise for sake of time passing by since the original, but get a "hotshot" director like Matt Reeves (Cloverfield) and good actors like Richard Jenkins and Chloe Moretz (Hit Girl from Kick-Ass), why wouldn't it be good? As long as they don't make any changes to the plot (they didn't), what can you really say is wrong with it? They are basically the same film, but one has Americans.

Is this what it has really come to, remaking films from 2 years ago...? I imagine the justification was to eliminate the subtitles, and of course to cash in on this vampire craze, but 2 years ago? It's not like the Swedish version was even that unknown, it was nominated for a BAFTA for best foreign language film, won a ton of film festival awards, it's currently ranked #207 on imdb's Top 250 films, and is holding a 97% over at Rotten Tomatoes (from over 150 critics), with an 8.4 on Metacritic. I was able to see it in 2008, like many people, I don't think many other Swedish movies have gotten such widespread exposure in the USA.

I guess I don't even know where I'm going with this... Just Netflix the Swedish one. Or go to the theater and see the American one. It doesn't really matter, they are both basically the same good movie. I guess I'm just slightly frustrated that both these films exist 2 years apart...

Here's the trailer for the 2008 Swedish film Let the Right One In:

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And here's the trailer for the 2010 American film Let Me In:

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Ironically enough, I've traveled quite a bit in Europe and Asia, and have never seen a subtitled movie. They're all dubbed into the local language. I was amused when I finally saw X-Men 2 (X2) in English after watching it dubbed into Italian - I don't speak more than market Italian, but I pretty much got the gist.

Same with Robocop 3 in Japan, actually, although there was a lot less gist to get.

Now that I think about it some more, one exception: saw Titanic in Paris with French subtitles - of all places to allow filthy ENGLISH to be spoken! - but I'm under the impression that a number of European jurisdictions REQUIRE local dubbing. No subtitles allowed.

Similarly ironic, all that PBS "commercial free" nonsense airs with commercials out the wazoo in the UK.

But any excuse to give Richard Jenkins a job is a good one. Okay, "Eat Pray Love" is iffy...but still...