Category: Cinema

The US remake of the Swedish vampire classic manages to confound expectations by actually improving on the excellence of the original.

For those unfamiliar with the story, it involves a lonely young boy (Kodi-Smit McPhee) struggling at home and school, who befriends a mysterious girl (Chloe Grace Moretz) who moves in next door with a older guardian (Richard Jenkins).

Director Matt Reeves (who made Cloverfield) has wisely stayed faithful to the source material, which includes the 2008 film and the original novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist.

Relocating it to Los Alamos, New Mexico in early 1983, it begins with a police officer (Elias Koteas) investigating a mysterious death which we later find out is just one of many plaguing the area.

From this opening sequence, a convincing sense of time and place is established and Michael Giacchino’s wonderfully creepy score sustains an ominous mood throughout.

Shooting mostly on location, Reeves and cinematographer Greig Fraser have crafted their own visual style which keeps things atmospheric and murky, referencing the original but also defining its own visual palette.

One sequence involving a car is a virtuoso piece of shooting and editing, whilst the bleak, wintry terrain of New Mexico evokes the sense of doom incurred by being the place which gave birth to the atomic age as well as Regan’s nuclear escalation in the early 1980s.

It is no coincidence that we see Regan as a background presence on TV denouncing the Soviet Union as an ‘evil empire’ and generally contributing to the dark mood throughout.

Reeves doesn’t shy away from the darker elements of the material: the school bullies are depicted as unremitting monsters (as they can seem to a child) and the violence hasn’t been curbed to get a softer rating.

McPhee and Moretz are excellent in the lead roles and have a rare emotional chemistry for actors of their age. Their relationship is all the more moving because of the danger at the heart of it.

Richard Jenkins and Elias Koteas also bring gravitas to their characters whilst Dylan Minnette deserves special praise as an impressively repellent school bully.

As a horror remake this is light years ahead of the horror junk that has been seeping out of Hollywood recently.

For those unfamiliar with the original, it will be a rare chance to appreciate a well crafted and emotionally effecting horror film.

But how will this play to audiences who have already seen the original Swedish film?

It is a difficult question to answer. Some will see it as redundant, others might even refuse to see it at all.

As a big fan of Tomas Alfredson’s movie, it seems odd to confess that Reeves has actually made the creepier film.

It doesn’t have quite the same mood or crisp visuals and will inevitably be seen by some as the lesser work because it is a remake.

But it feels like Reeves spent a good deal of time going over the original novel, as well as the first film, and worked hard to create something that can stand on its own.

The horror genre has seen too many bad remakes over the last decade, along with films that omit genuine scares for voyeuristic sadism.

Let Me In is a rare exception, a film which builds on the original and makes for an unsettling horror which affects the head and the heart.

Let Me in is out at UK cinemas on Friday 5th October

> Official UK site
> Let Me In at the IMDb
> Reviews at Metacritic
> Interview with Tomas Alfredson about the 2008 Swedish film

Ambitious and technically dazzling, the latest film from director Gaspar Noé is also a disjointed exploration of life after death.

Since attracting controversy and acclaim with Irreversible (2002), Noe has returned to similarly grandiose themes and, like his previous film, presented them within a contemporary urban world.

Set in contemporary Tokyo, Enter The Void focuses on a young American drug dealer (Nathaniel Brown), his sister (Paz de la Huerta), and the various people he comes across whilst peddling his wares.

When a deal goes bad in a night club early on in the film, Oscar is shot and becomes a disembodied soul who can observe his loved ones and acquaintances like a ghost.

As this spectral journey progresses, we also get flashbacks of Oscar’s childhood and numerous other meditations on his life and ultimate death.

What makes the film particularly striking from is that we see much of it through the eyes of the protagonist, a conceit which is sustained with consummate technical skill by Noé and his crew.

Much of the film is a master class in cinematography, visual effects and editing, to the point where it could become a case study in film schools for those curious as to how various sequences were executed.

However, the stylistic virtuosity is matched by a grimy setting: a dank, urban underbelly filled with dirty toilets, strip clubs and all manner of shifty people doing dodgy things.

Although likely to turn off some viewers, as a depiction of that world it is convincing, despite all the visual trickery used to present it.

The performances are solid: Brown makes for a sympathetic protagonist, with a performance heavily reliant on his voice work, whilst del la Huerta portrays the emotional and physical demands of her role with considerable courage.

The wild, freeform way in which Noé explores death itself as some kind of existential, hallucinogenic trip is hugely ambitious, even if it doesn’t always work.

Clumsy references to The Tibetan Book of the Dead and the loose nature of the narrative means that after about an hour the film starts to splutter and fracture.

But despite this, long stretches of the film are a remarkable assault on the senses.

Filled with strobe lighting effects, hypnotic sounds and even sequences set inside the human body, it is arresting, hallucinatory and disturbing, sometimes all at once.

This is precisely the kind of film that should be experienced in the cinema for the full effect and some sequences linger long after the end – one recurring scene was so effectively shot and edited, it jolted me out of my seat more than once.

Some will dismiss the ideas presented in the film as drug-fuelled pretension, but as a visual representation of what could happen when we die it is a fascinating and bold exploration of what is still a taboo subject in Western culture.

Compared to how many mainstream films feature death as something to be laughed at or perversely enjoyed, especially modern horror franchises, this makes the film all the more unusual.

Enter the Void has had a troubled journey to the screen with various cuts shown to different festivals over the last year, suggesting even Noé might have got lost inside the material.

A more definitive director’s cut might surface in the future, but it is rare for any modern filmmaker to attempt this kind of material, one of dazzling technical skill and intense philosophical ambition.

It might not always work, but the finished film is unlike anything I’ve seen in recent memory. For that, at least, it deserves considerable credit.

Enter the Void is out at selected UK cinemas on Friday 24th September

> Official UK site
> Enter the Void at the IMDb