Let the Right One In

Both of the young actors are remarkable, memorable and carry much of the story. "Let the Right One In" has a uniformly top-notch cast, but the kids happen to be terrific. So is the structure of the series, as laid out by creator/showrunner Andrew Hinderaker ("Penny Dreadful"). It is involving but not overly involved or convoluted in its plotting.

Hinderaker and his team thoughtfully elaborate on the human aspect of this story about families and vampires, letting its creepy elements round it off as a piece of meaty dramatic horror.

This show will not equal the artistic impact of the original film, but it retains its meditative qualities while upping the horror and the narrative intrigue, and it may be the case that it attracts more American viewers in the end.

The set up, while at times too neat, is confident and compelling. (For what it’s worth, I breezed through six episodes.) Showtime’s series isn’t going to convince anyone it’s the best adaptation to date, but there’s enough reason yet again to welcome Ellie into your home.

Some of the choices series creator Andrew Hinderaker makes to expand the story into a TV series land beautifully, particularly the emphasis on Mark's fatherly care for Eleanor and the toll that keeping her safe takes on him. ... It takes a while for the adrenaline to kick into these subplots, and the ordinary familiarity of Naomi's investigation of missing people and unsolved murders around the city adds to the sense of narrative ambling in the slacker portions of these episodes. But the restrained intensity and warmth in Rose's performance bridge well with the rumpled grief Bichir presses into his.

The show is most interesting when the kids are at the center; each has what the other needs. Foreman and Baez are genuine and touching, and it’s easy to invest in their story, with fingers crossed for a good outcome.

Like its source material, it's good at complex relationships between troubled characters, but nothing else really works. It might be possible to convert Let the Right One In, but every addition made here feels unnecessary. In the end, so does the series.

With so many balls in the air, Let the Right One In often feels scattered, lacking intentional focus when it strays from its ostensible main characters.

Let The Right One In is a bit uneven, mainly because some stories are less interesting than others, even if they’ll all get connected somehow by the end of the season. We just want to see how Mark and Ellie manage Ellie’s unusual life, and we want to see more of that as the show goes on.

It's all well done, though lacking the nightmarish eeriness of the earlier treatments. [10 - 23 Oct 2022, p.5]

Read the book and see both movies first. Once you know the story and accept that this isn’t definitive, its complementary merits have some value, even if the show doesn’t offer the devastating variations on a fertile theme that I would have hoped for.

“Let the Right One In” features strong performances, particularly from Bichir and Rose, but it’s a slow burn and doesn’t have much new to say about the themes it embraces.

Let The Right One In just falls flat. As the series jumps between goofy romance, crime procedural, family drama, and horror, it loses all its narrative steam.

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.

There’s stuff here that makes one root for “Let the Right One In,” but the show unfortunately does not stand out in a crowded marketplace for vamp dramas. It fails to connect its premise and the emotional work happening to its horror elements; the sweetness of its story and the nightmare of what’s occurring on the margins seem like they’re happening on different shows entirely.

It’s dull in ways that the book and films (and probably play) never were. Could it find some life again in the back half of the first season or in future ones? Possibly. The cast is definitely up for the challenge. If only the writers would give them something to sink their teeth into.