Let Us In is a 2021 familyscience fiction-horror film written and directed by Craig Moss.[2] It stars Makenzie Moss, Sadie Stanley, Mackenzie Ziegler, O'Neill Monahan, Siena Agudong, and Tobin Bell. The film is about a twelve-year-old girl who is ostracized in her small town for something she never did. When there is a rash of missing teenagers, she, along with her nine-year-old best friend, step in to figure out what's going on.[3][4]
A young couple is surrounded in the forest at night by teenagers in black hoodies and all-black eyes asking to be "let in". They break the boyfriend's arm and chase the girlfriend around, finally breaking her leg and forcing her to agree to "let them in". They go missing.
12-year-old Emily lives with her busy, uninvolved parents and spirited grandmother. At school, it is revealed that Emily is a bullied outcast as they imply she killed someone. Scarlett, the queen bee, purposely doesn't invite Emily to her party. Emily catches the glare of "Mean Mr. Munch" on the way home.
Emily's only friend Christopher, a believer in extraterrestrials, invites her to his house to make contact with aliens. That night, Emily is alone at the house. A knock at the front door reveals five hooded, black-eyed assailants who ask for her to let them in. She calls 911 and hides in the bathroom, but the hooded men smash the skylight above the tub and chase her outside as the police arrive. The sheriff tells Emily's dad, Mark, that the skylight was intact and there were no signs of intruders. He thinks that possibly some kids picking on her are to blame.
On the night of the party, Christopher's kind, older sister, Jessie, invites Emily to attend. She ends up playing truth-or-dare with Scarlett and her crew, where they end up insulting her for "killing someone", so she leaves. While outside, she catches the stare of Mr. Munch again. While on the toilet, Bianca encounters three hooded people with sunglasses on. When she freaks out after one caresses her, they knock her out by punching her.
Emily is in a therapy session trying to cope with an unexplained death. Not much is revealed except that she believes it was her fault as her therapist attempts to dissuade her otherwise. At school, Emily hears Bianca has gone missing. That night, Harold Lutz, a journalist with the Times, comes knocking at the door to report on the missing people.
Emily experiences a flashback nightmare that reveals her making a "besties" pact with someone before jumping off the roof into a pool. Her friend jumps in and Emily is awakened after her friend hits the water with a crack. At Christopher's house, they attempt to make contact with aliens through their homemade communication device before it's cut off abruptly. Emily tries to convince Christopher that they should cut their losses while Christopher pleads with her to have faith. As Emily opens the door to leave, they hear noises. Excited, Emily attempts to make contact and speak to the mystery extraterrestrials as they repeat the kids' names and the word Jungspar. The power suddenly goes out and cuts off communication.
At work, Jessie is closing up for the night and encounters the hooded teenagers asking to be let in. She refuses and they somehow break into the store. As she tries to escape, they disappear and Jessie locks herself in a supply closet to call for help. The hooded assailants trick her by sounding like her boyfriend, Tobey, to open the door. Jessie fights back as much as she can until they corner her, break her leg, and force her to "let them in".
Christopher and his mom realize Jessie hasn't come home from work yet, but his mom thinks she's snuck off to be with her boyfriend. Using a tracker, Christopher, his mom, and Emily realize Jessie is still at work, so they head there to check on her. They break in through the back door and realize a struggle has taken place. As Emily searches the store by herself, cops arrive. The next day, Christopher and Emily visit Harold to gather more information, with Christopher's sister being the seventh one that week. Harold has done some research and has come across only one other account of the "black-eyed kids" from 50 years ago, where there were over 25 disappearances with only one survivor: the elderly man, Frederick Munch. Emily and Christopher visit Mr. Munch's house and struggle to get him to help through his intercom. When Emily mentions Christopher's sister has been taken, he finally lets them in to the old and creepy house.
Mr. Munch claims he has been too scared to talk about the black-eyed kids for the last 50 years until the recent kidnappings started up again. He reveals they took his fiancée, but let him live, and took her through a portal that connects to outer space. Mr. Munch tells the kids that these alien-like humanoids refer to themselves as Jungspars. Mr. Munch has been doing research over the years and has figured out the Jungspar come to earth every 20 years to abduct adolescent girls and boys during their harvesting time to bring them back to their planet and force the abducted into slavery. Mr. Munch has seen the horrors of their planet and reveals they are required to get permission to abduct someone, and will do whatever and take however long it takes to force someone to say "yes". The pain endured while saying "no" to them is nothing compared to the pain endured when one says "yes", so no matter what happens, never say "yes". Christopher tries to make contact with the extraterrestrials through his homemade device, but suffers a couple setbacks when the power goes out. The aliens reveal themselves as Kluuk and ask Emily to beat the Jungspars by "shine the light".
Emily and Christopher go out into the forest at night and wait for the Jungspar to appear with no luck. They hear some noise and figures appear: Scarlett, Tobey, and others who have lost people to the Jungspar, all ready and willing to help get everyone back. Emily lures the aliens to the forest again as they ask for everyone to let them in. The group shines flashlights to scare them off, but they come back and chase the kids through the dark forest. Emily and Christopher lure them towards a car trap where the lights get turned on and force the Jungspar on the ground in agony, but another Jungspar sneaks up on them and takes out the kids in the cars and turns off the lights. As a result, Christopher and Scarlett are taken, leaving Emily and Tobey as the lone survivors. Back at home, the police force Emily to stay home as she pleads with them to let her go and that they're running out of time to save the ones abducted. Christopher's phone pings, but Emily is unable to leave her house due to police guarding her and preventing her from leaving. Her nana helps her escape by providing a distraction and Emily heads towards the location of Christopher's phone. Harold spots her scootering down the street and follows her to help out. They arrive at the spot where Christopher's phone pinged, but find nothing until a lone Jungspar jumps into a hole nearby.
Emily and Harold jump in to explore the cave and find the alien typing in a code in a tablet to trap the kidnapped kids in a blue-laser jail cell. Harold lures the Jungspar towards him before shining light to put him out. Emily finds all the missing kids from the entire week and tries to put the code in, which doesn't work. So, Harold smashes the tablet and frees them. However, Christopher and some other kids are not with the group and Jessie reveals they're going to send them somewhere else. Emily saves Christopher just as they're about to shove him through a portal, but a Jungspar sneaks up behind her and takes her flashlight. Cornered, Emily uses the whistle from Mr. Munch, which creates a sound that incapacitates the aliens. Emily sees a vision of Rachel, the friend who died that everyone's been calling her a murderer for, telling Emily her death was all an accident. Rachel asks Emily to take her hand, so they can play together again, but it turns out to be a Jungspar. It asks Emily if she'll let them in and threatens her, but she refuses and kicks it through the portal. As Emily finds herself cornered, the kids arrive with flashlights and throw the Jungspar through the portal. Christopher and Emily hug.
One week later, Emily's family and Christopher are packing their stuff to leave for Cape Canaveral as Jessie and Tobey come to see them off. Mr. Munch nods at them as they pass. While driving through the city, the kids are greeted with the townspeople cheering them on as "local heroes" as they leave for bringing all the missing kids back.
The scene goes to Mr. Munch in his bathroom as he pulls out his contacts, revealing his eyes to be black underneath.
The film was released direct to VOD in the United States on July 2, 2021.[5][6]
Reception
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 20% based on 10 reviews, with an average rating of 4.20/10.[7] On Metacritic the film has an average score of 56 out of 100 based on 4 reviews indicating "mixed or average reviews".[8]
While Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times gave the film one of only two positive reviews, stating that it had "a guileless warmth that drew my good will",[9] Daniel Goodwin of Starburst reflected the majority, noting it was "a bland and weary hotchpotch of derivative ideas and cheap VFX."[10]
Related Research Articles
Eight Legged Freaks is a 2002 monster comedy horror film directed by Ellory Elkayem and starring David Arquette, Kari Wuhrer, Scott Terra, Doug E. Doug, and Scarlett Johansson. The plot follows spiders that are exposed to mutagenic toxic waste, causing them to grow to colossal sizes and attack a small American mining town.
Spirits is a Philippine television program that was released by ABS-CBN. It aired from December 6, 2004 to May 6, 2005, replacing It Might Be You and was replaced by Mga Anghel na Walang Langit. It also aired on Wednesdays at 9:45pm on Jeepney TV. It is about eight children: Red, Lloyd, Maya, Liz, Jessie, Thor, Nato, and Gabby, who find out one day that they have special abilities unlike normal humans, which they received when a strange epidemic hit their hometown.
Patricia Anne Musick is an American voice actress who has provided numerous voices in many television shows, films, and video games.
Three in the Attic is a 1968 comedy-drama film directed by Richard Wilson and starring Christopher Jones and Yvette Mimieux, with Judy Pace and Maggie Thrett. Nan Martin, John Beck, and Eve McVeagh appear in supporting roles. Jones plays Paxton Quigley, a lothario who swears his fidelity to all three of the women he is dating, each of whom is unaware of his deception. When they learn the truth about Paxton, the women lure him into a college dormitory attic, where they each take turns attacking Paxton sexually in order to punish him.
Alien Abduction is a 2005 science-fiction thriller film produced by The Asylum, and one of few by the same studio not produced to capitalize on the release of another film. It was released with the tagline: "The war of the worlds has just begun!", referencing the 1898 novel The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, which would be adapted to film by The Asylum two months later.
The Fourth Kind is a 2009 science fiction thriller film directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi and featuring a cast of Milla Jovovich, Elias Koteas, Corey Johnson, Will Patton, Charlotte Milchard, Mia Mckenna-Bruce, Yulian Vergov, and Osunsanmi. The title is derived from the expansion of J. Allen Hynek's classification of close encounters with aliens, in which the fourth kind denotes alien abductions.
Darkening Sky is a 2010 American science fiction horror thriller film directed by Victor Bornia and stars Rider Strong, Danica Stewart and Ezra Buzzington.
Scooby-Doo and the Alien Invaders is a 2000 American direct-to-video animated science fiction romantic comedy mystery film. It is the third direct-to-video film based on Scooby-Doo Saturday morning cartoons. The film was produced by Hanna-Barbera. It is the third of the first four Scooby-Doo direct-to-video films to be animated overseas by Japanese animation studio Mook Animation. Unlike the previous films and despite the grimmer atmosphere, it has a lighter tone since it's real monsters that are on Mystery Inc.'s side and the disguised human beings are the main villains.
The Shortcut is a 2009 American horror film directed by Nicholaus Goossen, written by Dan Hannon and Scott Sandler, and starring Andrew Seeley, Shannon Woodward, Dave Franco, and Katrina Bowden. The film's plot centers on two brothers who discover a rarely used shortcut and learn its dark secret.
ATM is a 2012 American horror thriller film directed by David Brooks and starring Brian Geraghty, Alice Eve, and Josh Peck. The film centers on three people trapped in an ATM booth by a psychopathic hooded figure.
V/H/S is a 2012 American found footage horror anthology film and the first installment in the V/H/S franchise created by Brad Miska and Bloody Disgusting and produced by Miska and Roxanne Benjamin. It features a series of found footage shorts written and directed by Adam Wingard, David Bruckner, Ti West, Glenn McQuaid, Joe Swanberg, and the filmmaking collective Radio Silence.
Toy Story of Terror! is an American animated Halloween television special produced by Pixar Animation Studios and Disney Television Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures, based on the Toy Story franchise. It is set after the events of Toy Story 3, and premiered on the American television network ABC on October 16, 2013. It was written and directed by Angus MacLane, produced by Galyn Susman, with Joan Cusack, Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Don Rickles, Wallace Shawn, Timothy Dalton, and Kristen Schaal reprising their roles of Jessie, Woody, Buzz Lightyear, Mr. Potato Head, Rex, Mr. Pricklepants, and Trixie with Carl Weathers as Combat Carl and Stephen Tobolowsky as the motel manager. Michael Giacchino composed the music for the special. The film's soundtrack was released on October 15, 2013, on Amazon.com and iTunes in digital format.
Under the Skin is a 2013 science fiction film directed by Jonathan Glazer and written by Glazer and Walter Campbell, loosely based on the 2000 novel by Michel Faber. It stars Scarlett Johansson as an otherworldly woman who preys on men in Scotland. The film premiered at Telluride Film Festival on 29 August 2013. It was released in the United Kingdom on 14 March 2014, and in other territories later in the year.
Stagecoach Kid is a 1949 American Western film directed by Lew Landers and starring Tim Holt, Jeff Donnell and Richard Martin. It was one of a number of B-Westerns Holt made for RKO.
Barney and Betty Hill were an American couple who claimed they were abducted by extraterrestrials in a rural portion of the state of New Hampshire from September 19 to 20, 1961. The incident came to be called the "Hill Abduction" and the "Zeta Reticuli Incident" because two ufologists connected the star map shown to Betty Hill with the Zeta Reticuli system. Their story was adapted into the best-selling 1966 book The Interrupted Journey and the 1975 television film The UFO Incident.
Snatched is a 2017 American comedy film directed by Jonathan Levine and written by Katie Dippold. The film stars Amy Schumer and Goldie Hawn, with Joan Cusack, Ike Barinholtz, Wanda Sykes, and Christopher Meloni in supporting roles, and follows a mother and daughter who are abducted while on vacation in South America.
Lazer Team 2 is a 2017 American science fiction action comedy film directed, produced and co-written by Matt Hullum and Daniel Fabelo. The film is a sequel to 2015's Lazer Team, and follows the team traveling through a wormhole to find their missing friend Woody. It was released on YouTube Red in November 2017. It received positive reviews, critics stating it as an improvement from its predecessor. Financially it grossed less than $20,000, much less than the prequel.
Endlings is a Canadian science fiction television series that premiered on January 5, 2020 on CBC Television. The series is produced by Sinking Ship Entertainment. Endlings premiered in the US on Hulu on January 17, 2019.
Max Winslow and the House of Secrets is a science-fiction thriller written by Jeff Wild, produced by Johnny Remo and directed by Sean Olson. It is produced by SkipStone Pictures in association with Standing Room Only Cinema and BFY Productions and released theatrically through 3-D Live. The movie stars Sydne Mikelle, Tanner Buchanan, Jade Chynoweth, Emery Kelly, Jason Genao with Marina Sirtis and Chad Michael Murray.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
