Not every story can be successfully transposed to a different country and culture. Case in point: Let the Right One In, John Ajvide Lindqvist’s 2004 novel, which was faithfully adapted for the screen in 2008 by Tomas Alfredson, then remade in America in 2010 by The Batman director Matt Reeves as Let Me In, and now again arrives on domestic shores as a 10-part Showtime series. In its original Swedish incarnations, this tale of a weary man caring for a young vampire girl who befriends a lonely boy thrived courtesy of the strange, feral unnaturalness of its female protagonist and the twisted bond she shared with both her surrogate-dad caretaker and her new BFF. It was a nightmare defined by its icy, Nordic atmosphere and personality, as well as by its creepily inhuman main character—all of which was watered down by Reeves’ do-over (Chloë Grace Moretz is many things, but unnerving isn’t one of them), and proves even more neutered by Showtime’s rendition.
Let the Right One In (Oct. 9) sticks to the basic premise of its source material while also expanding its purview into new areas—a tack that, in most respects, proves reasonably engaging. Its primary focus is Mark (Demián Bichir), a Mexico City-born chef who has given up his career in order to care for his daughter Eleanor (Madison Taylor Baez), who was bitten by a mysterious fiend at the age of 12 and now feeds on fresh human blood. Mark carts Eleanor around in a trunk, moving periodically to avoid detection and killing to keep her from starving—and, also, from hunting, since he’d prefer to make himself the true monster. After years away, they return to New York City because a spate of mysterious, horrific murders imply that another vampire is on the loose. Mark’s main mission is to find the culprit that turned Eleanor into a creature of the night, in the hopes that this being might hold the key to discovering a cure for her condition.
In their new Midtown apartment, Mark and Eleanor quickly meet their neighbors: NYPD detective and mom Naomi (Anika Noni Rose) and her son Isaiah (Ian Foreman), who loves magic and is tormented at school for his quirky-dorky personality. Eleanor is destined to become both Isaiah’s friend and defender against bullies, and Let the Right One In establishes both characters in sharp detail, fashioning them as three-dimensional lost souls searching for companionship. Showrunner Andrew Hinderaker emphasizes the humanity of everyone involved, be it Mark’s burdensome grief and desperation or Isaiah’s alienation and fear, which is exacerbated by strained ties with his father, Frank (Ato Essandoh). Though he reappears on his son’s doorstep as a proudly three-months-sober new man, Frank has nonetheless not abandoned his old life, surreptitiously dealing a new drug that seems to give users glowing cat eyes and extraordinary abilities—and thus might be related to NYC’s recent slayings.
Though Foreman is undeniably the breakout star of Let the Right One In—radiating big-grinning charisma that makes Isaiah an instantly likable kid worthy of Eleanor’s affection and protection—everyone in Hinderaker’s series does fine work, including the reliably sturdy Bichir and the formidable Rose. The main issue is that Baez’s cherubic-faced Eleanor is, much like Moretz, too cute and human, which smooths out the bizarre bond at the heart of Lindqvist’s story, making it more palatable and less interesting. The same is true of the relationship between Mark and Eleanor, which is biological and inherently loving and, consequently, drained of the quasi-master-slave derangement that enlivened previous iterations of this saga. The perversion and depravity are all but gone, as are any serious moral questions, washed away by the idea that Eleanor is so adorable that she must obviously be nurtured and saved at all costs.
At most turns, Let the Right One In is both mildly captivating and yet a less complex and unsettling version of its predecessors, rounding off its edges to make Eleanor more likable and its mayhem go down easier. Still, it makes up for those deficits with a collection of intriguing new subplots. Back in his old stomping grounds, Mark gets a job working for his former best friend Zeke (Kevin Carroll)—who’s now a successful restauranteur—and enlists his help in dealing with his murderous predicament. That homicidal business eventually puts Mark in potential trouble with Naomi, as she and her partner Ben (Jimmie Saito) look into the bizarre serial killings terrorizing the city.
Let the Right One In’s biggest deviation is a thread concerning a disgraced and dying Big Pharma villain (Željko Ivanek) who convinces his estranged daughter Claire (Grace Gummer) to help cure her brother of his vampirism. Claire’s deal with the devil also puts her in league with her dad’s henchman Matthew (Nick Stahl), a shady ex-military baddie who’s keeping the family’s private laboratory afloat via a drug-dealing operation that includes a vampire blood-laced narcotic. Stahl and Gummer’s friction is a welcome element, and the former’s friendly eyes and supportive demeanor have a shadiness that suggest ulterior motives and maneuvers might be at play—thereby infusing the action with a necessary measure of volatility and unpredictability. It’s not hard to deduce how this family’s plight is related to Mark and Eleanor’s situation, but at least in the season’s first half, it’s one of the story’s highlights.
Let the Right One In’s pace is bumpy, and its drama is both laced with too many convenient twists and stretched a tad thin—particularly with regards to Eleanor and Isaiah’s oh-so-slowly developing closeness. Like so many long-form TV series, it lacks any sense of real urgency, and a seventh episode that flashes back to reveal the origins of Eleanor’s affliction proves unimaginative. Thanks to a raft of solid performances and some promising possible paths forward, there’s reason to believe that things may yet grow more intense and bizarre. It’s hard to shake the nagging feeling, though, that Hinderaker’s small-screen remake is too defanged for its own good.
