It didn’t take long for Swedish director Tomas Alfredson’s film Let the Right One In to earn a reputation as one of the greatest vampire movies ever crafted. Matt Reeves remade it almost immediately as Let Me In, which recreates the look and feel of the original, includes some intriguing variations, and adapts the story for an American context to remarkable effect. Both films frighten us by making us care for two lonely children—one a vampire, one a target for schoolyard bullies—even though we know that one is a killing machine and the other is a monster in the making.
—Jeffrey Overstreet