Director: Matt Reeves
Writers: Matt Reeves, John Ajvide Lindqvist
Stars: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Chloë Grace Moretz, Richard Jenkins
Run Time: 1 Hour, 56 minutes
Synopsis
We’re in Los Alamos New Mexico, 1983. An ambulance and several police cars are rushing through the snowy mountains. There’s man with severe acid burns over 90% percent of his body. Once they reach the hospital, a stranger comes to visit the patient. The man asks the patient “Are you some kind of Satanist? Are you in a cult? Tell me,” he asks The visitor is a policeman. The policeman gets a call inquiring about the man’s daughter. The man jumps out the window to his death, leaving only a note, “I’m sorry, Abby.”
Two weeks earlier…
Young Owen is a lonely boy eating candy outside in the snow. He drops a few pieces and goes inside for dinner. He listens to his mother and estranged father arguing over the phone. After dinner, he puts on a mask, picks up a knife, and watches his neighbors with a telescope. Not creepy at all!
He also watches a girl and a man carrying a chest into a nearby apartment. The next morning, he notices the windows in that apartment are boarded over from the inside.
He’s bullied at school, and no one does anything about it. He watches the older boys with her girlfriends, and he’s jealous. That evening, he plays stalker with his knife again. He’s just playing games right now, but it looks like he’s practicing to become a serial killer. Abby, the girl next door, introduces herself. “Just so you know, I can’t be your friend,” she says. “That’s just how it is.”
The girl’s father got out that night and attacks someone on a lonely country road. We see him hang the body upside down, and then watch him cut the guy’s throat and bleed him dry. He then slips on the ice and spills the blood all down the hillside; he goes home empty-handed. “Maybe I’m getting sloppy. Maybe I want to get caught. Maybe I’m just tired,” he explains.
The next day, Owen sees the policeman at school. That night, Owen shows Abby his Rubik’s Cube, and she’s never seen one before. He thinks it’s odd that she walks through the snow without any shoes on. “I don’t get cold,” she comments. As Owen leaves, Abby starts getting hunger pangs. She follows a jogger into a tunnel and lures him in by pretending to be a helpless little girl. She attacks him and drinks his blood, and we see that she’s a vampire. Owen hears Abby and her father arguing through the wall that night. We see the father going out and disposing of the jogger’s body.
The next night, Owen notices that Abby smells better and has shoes; she’s solved his Rubik’s Cube. Next day at school, Owen gets whipped by Kenny, the school bully. He tells Abby about it that night, and she tells him he has to hit back. They learn to tap on the wall, sending messages Morse Code.
The next night, Owen and Abby go play video games at the arcade. He tries to share his candy with her, but she doesn’t want any. She tries one, but then gets really sick.
Abby talks to her father, who is going out for more blood. He’s just not into the job anymore, and she understands. They touch each other inappropriately, and he asks her “Please don’t see that boy again, OK?” He seems a little jealous of Owen. There’s clearly more going on than a typical father-daughter relationship.
Father goes out again, just like the previous time, but this time, a second guy gets in the cart as well. The driver stops for gas, and Father kills the passenger while the guy is inside. Father drives the car over an embankment and the rescuers approach. Father pours acid all over himself.
Abby hears the report on the radio. She goes to visit Father in the hospital; he’s on the tenth floor, but they won’t let her go up there to see him. She flies or crawls up to the tenth floor and watches him through the window. Abby’s Father was the man who jumped out the window in the opening scenes. She wants to be invited in, but Father can’t talk. She bites him, and he falls out the window.
Abby goes to see Owen right afterward, and he invites her in. She crawls into bed with him, and they sleep. Owen asks Abby if she wants to go steady, and she agrees after explaining what that means.
The next day, the class goes out to the lake for some ice hockey. Kenny threatens to push Owen through a hole in the ice, but Owen hits him with a stick instead. Before the gym teacher can intervene, one of the kids starts screaming; they’ve found a dead body in the ice. It’s the jogger that Abby killed a few nights ago.
The policeman comes to the door, and he’s asking about Abby’s father, who lives next door. They know the killer lived next door and that he had a daughter.
At school, now Kenny is getting bullied, and Owen watches the whole thing. He tells Abby, and she is proud of him. He shows her a secret room in the basement where she can hide away from the police. Owen wants to make a pact, and he slices open his finger. She reveals her true self to him at the sight of blood. She bites one of the neighbors as she runs away.
He’s freaked out but he gets over it. He goes back to see her again. Abby explains that the man Owen assumed was her father was not a relative at all. She shows Owen a picture of her and her “father” when Father was Owen’s age. Abby has been twelve years old for a long time. It becomes clear that she’s chosen a young “companion” at least once before.
We see what happens when a vampire is exposed to sunlight and also see what happens when a vampire goes inside without being invited. Neither is a fun experience.
The policeman breaks in the Abby’s apartment in the daytime, and we know that she’s hiding in the bathroom. He finds many fake IDs for “Father” as well as other incriminating things— including a note saying that Abby is hiding in the bathroom. He finds her asleep in the tub, and just before he rips away the window covering, Owen distracts him. Abby jumps up and makes juicy work of the policeman, with Owen a full witness to what happened. She explains that she has to go away, and Owen understands.
The next evening at school, Owen goes to the school gym, and tonight is pool night. Kenny and the bullies seta dumpster on fire outside as a distraction to get the teacher outside. They lock him out then go after Owen. They say that Owen has to stay underwater for three minutes, or they’ll stab out one of his eyes. The boys hold him down for one minute, then they hear a sound. From underwater, we see a head fall down in front of Owen; Abby has killed all the bullies in a rather excessive manner.
Sometime later, we see Owen on a train with a large trunk; we realize Abby is inside. He’s her new companion, ready to grow old in her service.
Commentary
The first time I saw this, it was years before I even realized that it was a Hammer film. It looks nothing like anything that came before in the classic days of Hammer. It’s modern, creepy, and very, very serious.
This is a remake of “Let the Right One In,” a subtitled Swedish film from 2008. This one is in English, obviously, and done with a larger budget. It’s still an awesome story with a lot to talk about after a watch. The relationship between Abby and Own and Abby and “Father” is unique among vampire films, and really well-thought-out.
The production values and acting are excellent, and with not just one, but two child actors, that’s really quite an accomplishment. There aren’t many special effects scenes, but the ones that are here are well done- when Abby attacks someone she scampers all over them like a feral and vicious animal. I’m not quite sure what the intent was with Owen wearing his Halloween mask pretending to be scare little girls in his room (before he meets Abby), but it definitely gives us a glimpse of what he’s destined for after committing to Abby’s care.
Throughout the film, Owen is reading “Romeo and Juliet” for school, and the film has its very own forbidden romance. All I can say, is this is one of the best, and most memorable vampire films that has been released in decades.