In the film "Let Me In" the young vampire girl has an interest in puzzles. In this scene the boy she has befriended checks out her collection. He picks up something which looks a little like a wooden 3x3x4 with kind of knobs on the ends. I am curious to know if this is an actual puzzle since in the background you can see other genuine ones.
The storyline suggests that these are all old puzzles and she said she had never seen a Rubik's Cube before.

Hello Tony,

I don't know if it is an actual puzzle. But I have some extra pictures that might give us a little more information (click on the pictures to see them in full size). On these pictures, you can clearly see Cyrillic characters on the puzzle (К, Р, Ш, Ћ, Й, Б, М, Н, С and Г, other characters are hard to see).

At first I thought that the Ш was an E, but then I saw the way she holds the puzzle in the first picture... This indicates that the words formed should be read from top to bottom in that position, which corresponds perfectly to the orientation of the characters.

So the puzzle is similar might be related to Word Spin but with letters oriented differently. I wonder if the four pieces can be taken out from the "core" and rearranged...

Hope these new pictures will help find more information.

Skarabajo.

The last two photos remind me of the 'chewdini' from binary arts/think fun.

It sorta looks like there could be a puzzle in the top right corner of the second picture... maybe...

Roxanne, I think this makes a lot of sense. This wooden puzzle might be a disassembly puzzle with some sequential moves or position to be unlocked, in which case the letters might be simple decoration or hints. By the way, what I thought was a С, might actually be an Э instead (there shouldn't be any upside-down letters, right?). Also, some of the red pieces look like they might be part of a drawing instead of letters, particularly on the top of the second to last picture (let_me_in_07.jpg).

On a side note, I really liked Chewdini's simple/tricky solution and aha! moment. I didn't buy it after solving the demo version in the store; but I don't remember seeing any "secret prize inside"... Was it something that got stolen or that the store misplaced?

Skarabajo.

There is a mini chewdini keychain inside. Non-functional of course. I seem to have misplaced my box of keychain puzzles. So I'm guessing here, but i think it is only about 1 inch tall. I don't think it has the tail either.