PLOT: Inspired by the original hit Swedish novel and film, the series centers on Mark (Bichir) and his daughter Eleanor (Baez), whose lives were changed 10 years earlier when she was turned into a vampire. Locked in at age 12, perhaps forever, Eleanor lives a closed-in life, able to go out only at night, while her father does his best to provide her with the human blood she needs to stay alive.
REVIEW: It is amazing to me that in the 18 years since the titular novel was released, we are about to get our third version of Let the Right One In. After the acclaimed Swedish film in 2008 and Matt Reeves’ well-received remake two years later, Showtime’s take on the vampire story by John Ajvide Lindqvist deviates the most from the source material to create a unique blend of the narrative you may be familiar with combined with conventions of many other television shows. With a strong cast and striking visuals, this latest version of Let the Right One In feels dramatically different from its predecessors while only keeping the core concepts in place. Some may find the variation from the novel and films to be underwhelming but I found it to be a risky but rewarding experiment in setting itself apart from what came before it.
The core story in this version of Let the Right One In matches the movies and the book: a twelve-year-old girl named Ellie befriends a neighbor at her new apartment building. Little does the neighbor know but Ellie is actually a vampire. The neighbor, who is bullied at school, becomes close with Ellie and their relationship challenges those around them. From there, almost everything else is different. The series takes place in 2022 while the films were set in the 1980s. Whereas Ellie’s companion in the book and films was a pedophile obsessed with the childlike bloodsucker, here he is her actual father. Before, Ellie was actually hundreds of years old whereas in the series she has only been a vampire for ten years. Beyond that, the series explores a far larger cast of characters and builds substantial mythology around those familiar with the existence of the vampires and why they exist.
It took some getting used to for me to appreciate the new complexity to this story. The original Let the Right One In is one of the best horror films of the last twenty years because it was such a specific and romantic story. Tomas Alfredson’s focus became the relationship between Eli and Oskar, something Matt Reeves carried over into Let Me In. This series does still have a significant relationship between Eleanor (Madison Taylor Baez) and her friend Isaiah (Ian Foreman), but that is less central now. The new version changes the focus to Mark Kane (Demian Bichir), Eleanor’s father, who makes it his mission to discover the creature that turned his daughter in an effort to reverse her affliction. At the same time, Isaiah’s mother Naomi Cole (Anika Noni Rose) is a police officer investigating a series of brutal murders that may be at the hands of the same monster that Mark is tracking. We also have a subplot involving Arthur Logan (Zeljko Ivanek) and his daughter Claire (Grace Gummer) who are also trying to find a cure for the vampire disease that infected their family member.
The new series does lose the intimacy of the previous adaptations and feels like a broader vampire story with more involved mythology, but it also works thanks to the performances of the cast. Madison Taylor Baez is excellent as the 22-year-old trapped in the body of a 12-year-old who struggles to balance her thirst for blood with living her life. Demian Bichir is phenomenal as her father and gives so much more meaning to the role of her caregiver, especially in relation to the events that led to her turning. This series does provide ample backstory including an entire episode focused on a flashback to how Eleanor became infected. The supporting roles in the series from Nick Stahl, Kevin Carroll, and Ato Essandoh all flesh out this ensemble cast and prevent this from turning into another rote and cliche-ridden horror show.
Created by Andrew Hinderaker (Away, Penny Dreadful), this updated Let the Right One In is an interesting counter to AMC’s remake of Interview with the Vampire. Where the Anne Rice series romanticizes the vampire and turns it into a metaphor for sexuality, Hinderaker’s update focuses on the disease and infectious nature of the vampire. By making this story about what length parents will go to protect and try to save their children, Let the Right One In evolves to a different type of tale from the source material. It also benefits from shifting from its original home at TNT to a premium cable service where the violence can be on display. The special effects here never get to a point of being unnecessarily gory but there is a fair amount of unsettling bloodshed and a visual style led by directors Seith Mann, Viet Nguyen, and Hiromi Kamata that make deep use of the darkness of subways and night time settings while also bathing daylight scenes in brisk and unsettling light.
I was worried when this series was first announced that Let the Right One In would be another unnecessary remake. I am pleasantly surprised that this is a distinct enough take on the story that it feels like its own tale entirely. Some may be disappointed that the series takes on a broader narrative with a larger cast, but it works thanks to Demain Bichir and Madison Taylor Baez and the entire cast around them. This series does not feel like a traditional horror story but rather a realistic and grounded tale about loss, illness, grief, and perseverance told through the lens of monsters and the horrors they bring. Let the Right One In is not scary in the traditional sense but evokes a feeling of fear and dread along with a thread of hopefulness through the love at the core of the relationships that drive this story.
Let the Right One In premieres on October 9th on Showtime.