The folks out at Anchor Bay sent over a cope of Let Me In to review, and this is going to be interesting. It’s a remake of the original Swedish vampire movie, Let The Right One In, and I saw that one earlier. Frankly, I didn’t like that one much–up until the last fifteen minutes or so it was the dullest thing I’d ever seen–but how the remake would turn out, well, that’s what we’d have to get into and find out.

Let Me In takes us to the wilds of New Mexico, where life isn’t pleasant for chronic bully-target Owen. But things look up when he meets Abby, a girl constantly on the move from place to place with the man who seems to be her father. But what Abby actually is is nothing short of horrifying, at least, for everyone but Owen. Will Abby’s terrible secret destroy them both? Or will it give Owen a whole new life?

Chloe Moretz will likely forever be associated with her Hit Girl role in Kick-Ass, and frankly, she’s brought a lot of that to her Abby. Both of them can have that incredibly hyperkinetic bouncing quality to them, at least sometimes, and here it’s a lot darker besides.

Meanwhile, this one will prove to be a bit better than its original, because it actually does a bit more with the plot, instead of just stumbling along like the original did. It’s still not the best thing I’ve ever seen, but it is one of the better vampire movies I’ve seen in a while. I don’t see many good vampire movies, mind you, but this one really does rank right up there.

Oh, and special note–the soundtrack here is terrific, with lots of great eighties and seventies music going on in the background, including lots of Blue Oyster Cult. This lends a great note of authenticity to the proceedings.

In fact, this isn’t half bad. It’s stepped up quite a bit from the original, it’s got a lot more excitement to it, and yes, the climax of the original is in play in this one, as four gigantic jerks beating up on one spindly little boy get exactly what’s coming to them in a grandiose and blood-soaked display of justice. The best part is that most of the horror in question takes place largely off-camera, so what you see are only bits and pieces, leaving you to make inferences as to just how far the whole thing goes. And man…does it ever go a long way!

The end result is a mixed bag but still pretty satisfying title, and as vampire movies go, it’s definitely one of the best.

The Screenhead Ten Scale hands Let Me In a seven out of ten for doing what I thought was the downright impossible and providing a reasonably good quality, reasonably satisfying, and reasonably watchable vampire film. It’s not every day we get one of those, folks, so savor the flavor; it likely won’t come around again soon.