I don't take any pleasure in sticking the boot in on a film so woeful, but I have to write this purely for selfish reasons. See, what keeps happening is this: I see a film called Don't let Him In listed, and it captures my attention. So, my interest piqued – I enjoy even below average horror films, mostly – I look at the synopsis. And I think, "Sounds good." So I set it to record, and look forward to watching it. Then, when the mood takes and I have the two hours set aside, I sit down to watch it. Get a few snacks ready. A drink. Lights down. And then I play the movie.The first few seconds are fine. But then: a vague gnawing in my stomach. Not the good kind of edginess a decent horror might give you; rather, an uneasy feeling that I'm an idiot who doesn't learn from previous mistakes. But I'm unsure, and keep watching, hoping vainly that maybe I'm wrong. But the opening sequence ends, and I see that shot of houses. And it sinks in. The dread and discomfiture spread through me. Then, the next shot of the house. I'm still not absolutely convinced, but in my heart, I know. Then the killer blow: the shot – THAT shot – in the kitchen. The skewiff, seemingly rushed framing. The ropey sound recording. The stiff acting from miscast people who seem unsure about what they're doing. I can't ignore the truth anymore: I've been here before – several times. Because, like my own private horror movie, this keeps happening to me.I keep recording Don't Let Him In, having forgotten that I've seen it, and that it was – truly – one of the worst things I've ever sat through. And I seem to block it from my mind (that perfectly generic title is so easy to separate from the film it belongs to) and forget that it ever happened, and record it again, and sit down to watch again, and I am swamped with anger and disappointment. I stop the film as the girl is doing her best to act like someone coughing in bed, and delete it, promising to never let this happen again. A few months later, I see a film listed called Don't Let Him In, and think, "Hmm, that might be interesting..." So: enough. This ends, now, here. As said above, I take no satisfaction in trashing these folks' movie, which I'm sure they worked hard on. Plenty of others here have gone into the details of what makes it so awful (as well as some shameless shills giving it 9 and 10...seriously: at least try and be cleverer about lying on behalf of your friends/employers), so I won't do that.All I want to do is say to myself: Please. Remember. You have seen the British horror film called Don't let Him In. You gave it 1/10 on IMDb. Learn. Stop forgetting that you've been here before. See the warnings earlier. Recognise the title. Do not set to record.Make this the last time. Burn the title into your mind: DON'T LET HIM IN. You can't keep doing this to yourself.Here's hoping.

At first glance, DON'T LET HIM IN is an intriguing slice of low budget British horror. The plot sees a group of four 20-somethings travelling to rural Devon for a restful weekend, only to get caught up in the ferocious antics of the 'Tree Surgeon', a serial killer who enjoys hanging the body parts of his victims from trees. What follows is a tale packed with twists and turns as character motivations and hidden secrets come to the fore.In terms of production values, DON'T LET HIM IN is a perfectly serviceable slice of low budget entertainment. The setting is atmospheric and the performances are decent, even though a couple of the characters are completely annoying. The film isn't outrageously gory but there are some bloody moments along the way. So what, then, is the problem? Well, it lies with the script, which relies on contrived situations and unbelievable actions on the part of the characters for effect. These people do the dumbest things imaginable to further the story, and at a certain point you just stop buying it. The story also ends about 20 minutes before the running time, leading to a boring extra scene tacked onto the end. Not great.

I was shocked just how bad this movie was. It was well made, well acted, great scenery, and like a said, you can polish a turd, but its still a turd. As well made as this movie was it was terrible. It was a typical slasher movie except all of the characters have had their brains surgically removed. None of the characters do things that people in real life do, nor do they react to situations like a normal human being. Two scenes that jump out at me are when the 'mysterious' hitchhiker shows up at the main characters remote cabin with a stab wound. The main female character is a nurse and immediately begins to give him medical aid (I with the scene so far), so the tertiary blonde bimbo say in the background, I will call an ambulance. The nurse lady tells her that there is no time for that. Then the blonde watches impotently as the main character saves his life. What the 'f' do you mean that there is no time to call an ambulance, the blonde wasn't helping anyway, so call the effing ambulance. But here's the kicker, after the mysterious stranger is going to live, they don't call the police, an ambulance, they are going to let this wounded guy stay in there remote cabin without an explanation to why he was stabbed. I don't know about you, but if a guy shows up at my door with a gushing stab wound, granted I am going to do everything that I can to save his life, but the ambulance and police are going to be called. The second unforgivable scene is when the protagonists now know who one of the killers are, and still let him back into the house. The movie was so terribly written it begs for an explanation. How could you have gathered a group of intelligent actors and not have anybody say, 'you know this doesn't make any sense'...

Well, I always try to find something positive in any movie, but here my empathy is really stretched to it's outer limits (and beyond). This is just one very bad movie! Even for a non-pretentious slasher flick like this, there's no other qualification. Okay, maybe the premise, albeit far from original, is not totally wrong. Four persons spend a night in some forlorn cottage while there's a warning for a serial killer on the loose in the vicinity, and when some of them are getting attacked and murdered we start to wonder if maybe one of the group itself is the killer. but besides the premise, virtually everything else is wrong. To begin with: the script is just terrible, it's like the school-project of some first grade high-school kid, it's just SO lame and childish and unrealistic! For instance, who in his right mind would take an utterly unknown one- night-stand of one's sister with you on a weekend-trip to a cottage, while this guy is totally obnoxious from the start and behaves to his hosts in a revoltingly rude way? Then we see a police-officer (or is it? it looked like the late Benny Hill in disguise), who cheerfully tells the four that there's a sexually deviant maniacal serial killer on the loose who cut's off his victim's body-parts, and then he concludes with: "but don't worry, we have everything under control, just keep your doors and windows locked". I just couldn't believe he said that! What's worse: they actually buy it: "hell no, why go home, the police says they have everything under control…!" A complete stranger stumbles into their cottage, his belly mutilated with a knife. Do they call an ambulance? Or 911?? No way, our fearless female hero turns out to be a nurse and without any hesitation sows the guy's flesh-wound up with fishing rope! Without anesthesia! Do they call for an ambulance after-wards? Or bring him to a doctor themselves?? Not so, they put this total stranger in the marital bed. And behold: the next day the guy get's up, eats a rich breakfast and soon starts to help out (cooking meals!) in the cottage. Mind you: all this as if he's the most sound and crisp man alive, in stead of a recently mutilated and operated patient. Oh, I almost forgot: the guy doesn't want to make a fuzz about his being stabbed by a stranger in the woods (as if such trivial things happen to him all the time!) and doesn't want the police involved. Do they grow suspicious? No way!! This miracle-cured guest offers to go and look for the missing husband in the middle of the evening and returns with the horrendous report that he found the husband dead and mutilated somewhere in the woods. The wife is devastated for at least three seconds. Does she doubt it, like anyone else would? Does she run out to look for him herself? Does she turn hysterical?? Not a chance. She believes it on the spot and reacts almost as casual as if her soufflé sagged-in. There's some kind of twist in the end, okay, that could have been interesting. But the switch from endearing and grateful guest to a devilish, rambling and drooling maniac is just too big to swallow. He drags our heroine to some cave-like hole in the woods, but apparently for reasons of a good sport sets her free, to chase her again. She runs for her life, comes up to a farm (hey, the cottage wasn't that secluded after all!), picks up a rake to punch it into the first man that leaps from behind the hay-stack. Alas, it's Benny Hill, the copper. I could swear I heard her whisper "Oops...!" in his dying face, before she drags out the rake and turns into this epic (just being ironical!) final battle with the maniac. Here the script turned out to be so weary of it's own tedious cliché's that they decided for an original ending: she pushes the killer backwards into a conveniently present colossal razor-sharp wooden stick (that for some unfathomable reason protrudes out-off the hay-stack) and in the process pales herself too. Thank god she has enough breath left to utter some Famous Last Words, something like: "the last laugh is on me….!" The last image is the two of them hanging belly to belly together as a perverted couple of rag-dolls. Well, all this may seem like the ideal ingredients for a hilarious horror-parody, but it's nothing like that. Everything is brought to us dead-seriously without even the least tongue-in-cheekness. And to boot it all, the acting is over-all abominable, and apart from the last surviving wife everyone looks unattractive and dreary. The surroundings are grey and boring, the photography is uninspiring and the special effects (if any) look cheap. Oh, and for a wannabe horror-flick it lacks the most important ingredient: it's not even a tiny bit scary.