Bad Ass trilogy director Craig Moss takes a crack at sci-fi with this flaccid alien abduction thriller about a bullied twelve-year-old, Emily (Makenzie Moss), and her geeky pal Christopher (O’Neill Monahan) who attempt to contact extra-terrestrials using a self-made tracking system. After receiving some ominous signals, Emily and Christopher connect a potential interplanetary presence to a spate of local disappearances.

Drawing from a contemporary urban legend about paranormal creatures the ‘black-eyed kids’, Moss and co-writer Joe Callero’s script sets up its protagonists, adversaries, and story, then disengages a patchwork plot peppered with platitudes, dead-end narrative strands, and supporting character stereotypes, from reedy, pale-faced hoodie-wearing captors to insipid tween bullies, all of whom fail to retain viewers’ attention throughout its curt duration.

Despite engaging performances from Makenzie Moss, who works wonders with the weak material, and O’Neill Monahan as her nerdy cohort, the two lead actors, and their characters, aren’t remotely potent enough to bolster this no-frills production and its rickety script. Tobin Bell also turns up as the creepy “scary German guy” type Mr. Munch but doesn’t deliver the kind of brooding mystery or gravitas that Tony Todd did in the Final Destination series.

Writer/director Moss fails to conjure the kind of tense and tangible air that would make Let Us In frighten or resonate as anything other than a bland and weary hotchpotch of derivative ideas and cheap VFX. With a plot that dithers as though drafted on the bus to production, Let Us In eventually collapses under the weight of its defects, and leaves us repeatedly checking the run-time while tenderly stroking the stop button.

LET US IN is available on digital platforms in the US from July 2nd