9/30/2010

Let Me In...(side a Vampire's Mind)

Having come from a schmooze fest with the Jackass 3D stars...and booze, I was pretty thrilled to head to another free screening back in Berkeley (so I could walk straight home afterwards without taking too much time.) The screening started late - almost at midnight - which was perfect because I could then walk home in the dark, freaking myself out the whole time after a scary movie.

Talking to some people in line (I tend to do that a lot), I found two people who regularly get into a ton of fre screenings and they taught me some of their little tricks. They recommended several movies that I should see, including Easy A. We ended up discussing what we hoped this movie would give us, and we all agreed on one thing - we wanted to be scared, to jump from our seats (and hopefully, not be the only ones in the theater screaming).


The screaming part seemed like a hard task to fill because the screening came out so late that only about 10 people showed up, and we were the only two girls there. >.< It seemed as though we were doomed to fail.




Once I entered the cinema and sat down, I realized that it must have been a playhouse at some point because there was a stage, a balcony, and seats that leaned back. Also, the entire room had an Egyptian theme, which led to my next conversation with the man sitting next to me. 
A tremendous history buff, he spouted dates and told me of their significance. We also played the time-travel game - when and where, as long as it wasn't within the last 500 years. Soon we were cut off from talking as the movie started.


Let Me In is a movie about the relationship between a 12-year old boy and a 12-year-looking girl vampire. What is the current obsession with vampires? I've been constantly inundated with movies and tv shows after Twilight became popular i.e. True Blood, Vampire Diaries, Vampires Suck. There are probably more, but that's all I can remember immediately.


It has all the makings of an awesome scary movie: creepy music, random deaths, voyeuristic peeping...but it just never lives up to its potential. Honestly the music was the scariest part of the movie. Several times it would be in the background slowly haunting its way into the forefront where, expectedly, someone/thing would jump out and kill. Unfortunately, that only happened twice...both in plain view of the audience. There was never any hand reaching out and grabbing the shoulder, or the sudden twist of the camera to show that it had been jumped upon.



pic courtesy of fearnet.com
Instead of creepiness and gore, I got hugging >.>

If, however, you disregard it's classification as a scary movie and its creepy buildup of haunting music, it's a not a bad movie with a decent plot line. There are some poignant parts to this movie, especially where Owen realized that his bully was bullying him the same way he was being bullied by his older brother. Unfortunately, Owen was unable to step out of the bullying cycle because once he stood up to his bully, the bully's older brother stepped in and took over the bullying.


Three-fourths of the way through the movie, I knew exactly what was going to happen to all the characters, which isn't good for a scary movie. Plus the entire time I wasn't scared! This movie was a huge disappointment, so I think I would have to give this movie a rating of D+/C- because the message of bullying and friendship was heartwarming but definitely NOT what I would have paid for to see this movie (luckily I didn't).

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