Let Us In: 'Family-friendly' horror film about online urban myth is unlikely to impress Young Adults

By Thom Ernst

Rating: C

As students put behind the most challenging year of their scholastic careers and see a brighter summer in front of them, a new hurdle lurks - the summer horror movie Let Us In. 

Although Let Us In is billed as a science-fiction/horror for young adults, it’s hard to imagine anyone identifying as a teen or tween finding much interest beyond a rudimentary curiosity of an online urban myth getting the feature-length film treatment. 

O’Neill Monahan and Mackenzie Moss in Let Us In.

The urban legend on which Let Us In is based (“Inspired by” would be too grand of a term) is of black-eyed children seen hitchhiking and appearing on the doorsteps of residential homes. 

Texas reporter Brian Bethel takes credit for the story’s origin. His reported encounters with these creatures spawned rumours of ghosts, vampires, or aliens. But the only confirmed sighting of black-eyed children is in two under-performing films Black-Eyed Children: Let Me In (2015) and Sunshine Girl and the Hunt for the Black-Eyed Kids (2012).  Let Us In is the third.  

Director and co-writer Craig Moss forays from B-level action comedies with titles like Bad Ass, Bad Ass 2: Bad Asses, Bad Asses on the Bayou, and The 41- Old Virgin Knocked Up Sarah Marshall and Felt Superbad About It  (not making this up) into C-level “family-friendly” horror. 

Forget whether black-eyed children are real; I didn’t know family-friendly horror was a thing.

PROUDLY SUPPORTS ORIGINAL-CIN

The plot focuses on 12-year-old Emily (Makenzie Moss), a precocious middle school outsider with the unlikely angst and self-deprecating awareness of Phoebe Waller-Bridges’ Fleabag. Moss pulls in a good performance out of material written through an adult perspective as to how a preteen heroine behaves.

For Emily, the disappearance of local teenagers registers as a backdrop next to the guilt she feels over a sibling’s accidental death—a subplot that doesn’t get enough film-time to feel significant—and from her dealings with a nasty group of teenage girls. That is until the sister of Emily’s wise-cracking friend Christopher (O'Neill Monahan) becomes one of the missing. 

What they uncover, and what the audience already knows, is that the culprits are a gang of black-eyed, pale-skinned, hooded youths whose monotone catchphrase, “Will you let us in?” precedes their aggressive behaviour. 

Like Emily, Christopher is written from the keyhole perspective of an adult looking in.  Christopher courts a cavalier off-the-cuff disinterest with the comical edge of self-preservation one might expect from a young Robert Downey Jr. 

Both Emily and Christopher’s intuitions and insights belong to much older people.  

It’s possible that Let Us In has no designs on a YA crowd despite the adult-like qualities bestowed on its main characters. The film seems more comfortably aimed towards a younger audience functioning as an introduction to horror films, the way candy cigarettes were once thought to prep kids for smoking. 

Tobin Bell (SAW) is the star ticket here, but his presences amounts to little more than a cameo.  He is something of the town’s Boo Radley, a man surrounded by rumour, conjunction, and mystery. 

Then there are the dull, unfrightening night creatures stalking our heroes with all the dread of a 1960s Star Trek villain lost on the set of Goosebumps. 

Let Us In is a minor film so void of inspiration and originality that it should be of no consequence. Eventually, it won’t be. But, for now, Let Us In—which should in no way be confused with director Tomas Alfredson’s exceptional vampire flick, Let The Right One In—stands as if in defiance of better things ahead. 

Sure, it’s not a virus, nor anything life-threatening, but it’s enough of a disappointment to beg the question, “Haven’t the kids been through enough?” 

Let Us In is directed by Craig Moss and stars Mackenzie Moss, O’Neill Monahan, and Tobin Bell.  Let Us In opens July 2 on VOD and On Demand.