When it was first announced that there would be an American remake of Sweden's 2008 vampiric coming-of-age drama Let the Right One In, the general knee-jerk reaction of film pundits was that it would be yet another casualty in the ongoing trend of Hollywood "ruining" good movies. But as the October release date of the new version approaches, we're glad to see the naysayers eating their words and acknowledging that a remake doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing (in fact, the rightly lauded original film was itself based on a novel, though it was adapted for the screen by the author).

Fans first started warming to the idea of a remake with news of the casting of the two leads. Chloe Moretz, who has slowly but steadily been taking over the world (500 Days of Summer, The Poker House, Kick-Ass, Martin Scorsese's upcoming Hugo Cabret), landed the role of Abby, the timeless, tortured soul forever frozen in the bloodthirsty body of a young girl. Meanwhile, Kodi Smit-McPhee was cast as Owen, still in the wake of his critically praised performance opposite Viggo Mortensen in The Road, another project which was essentially a two-man play at its core.

Now, with a trailer available for dissection, movie-goers are being given even more reasons to look forward to Let Me In's October debut. In addition to the dramatic chemistry seen between the two stars, the preview also boasts themes of horror and dread that have been painfully missing from vampire films for too long, due in part to the Twilight phenomenon. Seriously, Edward may have spent three movies telling Bella how much being a vampire sucks, but does anyone really buy it? With Let Me In, Chloe Moretz's Abby promises a monstrous alter-ego that completely downplays the glamour of being eternal.

Here's to hoping that Let Me In can breathe some much needed life into the vampire subgenre of horror films...

In the fine tradition of his previous film Cloverfield, director Matt Reeves has a bit of an easter egg at the end of the trailer for his upcoming horror drama Let Me In. In the original Swedish film Let the Right One In, the two main characters have an important, recurring story device of communicating through walls by tapping out messages in morse code. The remake seems to carry on that theme, with the trailer closing with a morse code message of its own. Here's the letter-by-letter translation:

H = four dots
E = one dot
L = one dot, one dash, two dots
P = one dot, two dashes, one dot
M = two dashes
E = one dot

Thus, the entire sequence reads "HELP ME"--which, coincidentally, is the message spelled out in a scene from another awesome horror movie, The Exorcist. Hoo-wah!