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6:19 a.m. - 2023-05-17 LET ME IN is based on the Swedish horror film LET THE RIGHT ONE IN. I was a little disappointed to read this, because the Hammer version, far more nuanced and subtle than any Hammer horror movie I can remember, struck me as that very rare species: a highly original vampire story. Time and place are important parts of the plot. It takes place in Los Alamos, New Mexico, best known as the birth place of the atomic era, in the cold of high elevation winter, a dark, shadowy world where people speak in hushed voices. It's 1983, the year of Reagan's Evil Empire speech, given to American Evangelicals, when we self-congratulatingly perceived evil as something outside ourselves. Owen, wonderfully and subtly portrayed by Kody Smit-McPhee, is a lonely, intelligent and secretive 12-year-old boy, seemingly friendless and relentlessly bullied at school by another boy, Kenny, and his two stooges. When we first meet Owen he is alone in the semi-darkness of his apartment complex courtyard eating his favorite candy and softly singing its advertising jingle, "Eat some now, save some for later." As we learn shortly, Owen is in the habit of stealing from his mother in order to purchase the candy; he hides the wrappers in the snow of the courtyard so she won't know he is spoiling his dinner. Owen later shows an interest in Morse code, Rubik's Cube, and video games--all solo pursuits, though he treasures the memory of a former friend with whom he played ping-pong. He has a telescope in his room, but is never seen studying the stars; rather, he usedsit to spy on his neighbors--all of whom will eventually become victims of the vampire. Those same neighbors never interact with him, though one of them suspects him of voyeurism, and, indeed, being an outsider looking in is a recurring theme in Owen's life. Owen's mother (Cara Buono), whose face is never clearly shown, is an odd mix of religious devotion and alcoholism, given to passing out after dinner and leaving Owen to clean up. Religion is ever-present but irrelevant in Owen's home; at one point, through a trick of reflection, a portrait of Jesus seems to be looking over his shoulder as he rifles through his mother's purse, looking for spending money. His parents are in the midst of a bitter divorce, and we know his father only as a voice on the phone. At one crucial juncture, when Owen desperately needs advice, his mother is unconscious and his father misinterprets Owen's question about the nature of evil within the narrow confines of his own marital problems. "I don't want to hear any more of this," he tells his son, promising to see him soon, "maybe this weekend." "10 p.m.," says a display on the unconscious mother's TV screen, "Do you know where your children are?" Owen's teachers are just as clueless. The physical education teacher, Mr. Zoric, misses most of what's going on in his classes and, in the crucial final confrontation between Owen and the bullies, is easily distracted and removed from the action by a dumpster fire. "Careful of holes in ice," he tells his students on a skating expedition, tacitly admitting his own inability to watch out for them himself. When Owen briefly stands up to the bullies by striking one with a stick, his school principal is concerned about the deed itself rather than the motivation behind it. It never occurs to her that a small, shy, physically immature boy might have to defend himself in the LORD OF THE FLIES environment that is the public school system. Similar lack of credit goes to Owen's mother, who at least is conscious for the mandatory interview. Owen's principal tormenter and, until Abby's arrival, the only meaningful acquaintance in his sad, lonely life, is Kenny, played by Dylan Minnette. Encouraged by his two predictable sidekicks, Kenny constantly harasses Owen in both petty and horrific ways. He addresses Owen as "little girl," asks him repeatedly if he is scared--Who wouldn't be?--and at one point threatens to put a stick up his ass. The homophobic implications are more than obvious in a decade when the US President spent years ignoring the AIDS epidemic. If cruelty is strength and strength is masculinity, then bullying a smaller boy with somewhat feminine features is a guarantee of one's tough guy superiority. Though LET ME IN is a vampire movie with all the usual violence and gore, I found the bullying scenes the most difficult to watch. Later, after Owen has stood up to Kenny and injured him, we see Kenny's status change; he is no longer the unbeatable tough guy. In a reverse of THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE, Kenny's wound, like the one he earlier administered to Owen's cheek, is a symbol of vulnerability. We also meet Kenny's even more abhorrent brother Jimmy, who bullies his younger sibling and uses the same epithets that Kenny has used for Owen. Owen, in his perennial outsider role, observes the interaction from a safe distance. In a different narrative, this scene could have been a turning point in Owen's relationship with Kenny, but there are more powerful and darker forces at work in Owen's life.
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