Previewing Let the Right One In

 

In a measure of full disclosure, I have not read the book, Let the Right One In.  Nor have I watched the Swedish movie based on the book.  Though I did watch the American remake, Let Me In with Hit Girl.  Granted, as I try and remember that movie which I have not watched since shortly it was released, the only thing I remember is a pretty cool one shot car crash shot from inside the car. 

 

Okay, I also remember the general premise of an elderly father taking care of his vampire daughter who has been stuck in a twelve year old body for a while and has to move periodically to avoid being caught.  That general premise remains for the new televised version; one again entitled Let the Right One In, but then severely deviates from my vague recollection of the movie.  The setting has moved to New York City, from a more rural area.  There is also a secondary storyline featuring an elderly father and his son who is older than the vampire girl.  The show is not quite the IP fraud Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin, but anyone hoping for another faithful adaptation that has a little more room to breathe on the small screen show should temper their expectation.

 

Let the Right One In stars Demián Bichir (The Bridge) as the father who has moved him and his vampire daughter back to the City after spending the last ten years searching for a cure.  The spiking murder rate will help him hide the way he obtains her diet.  Just his luck, he move next door to a detective (Anika Noni Rose, Them) investigating all those murders who has a son around the same age as his daughter… or the age she was when she stopped aging.

 

Though, the show does not even start there.  Instead, the first scene involves a college aged kid who looks like he is enjoying his very first sunrise.  It because clear that this was probably the first sunrise he saw in a while as a couple seconds later, he burst into flame.  He turns out to be the son of a drug maker whose painkillers got everyone hooked and was sued out of business.  Now the father has called his daughter (Grace Gummer, Mr. Robot) home, hoping she can find the cure he was never able to.  Oh, and to tell her that the brother she thought was dead, is a vampire and got burnt to a crisp because his latest cure failed miserably.  Surprise.

 

Let the Right One In is the last of four vampire shows to premiere over the past month, but I guess it does say something that this was the first I even bothered to watch, three of the four tied to popular books that were previously movies.    While it probably is the best this show has deviated from the plot of the book because it needs to fill in the plot to stretch it out for a season, and the doctors trying to find a cure is an interesting addition, you do have to wonder where the writers expect to go after the first season.  The young actress playing the vampire is not going to look like a seventh grader for very long.  But if the mad scientists do cure her, which would dramatically chance what potentially future season would be.  It is already bordering on IP fraud, having a Let the Right One In show without a vampire daughter would make it full IP fraud.

 

Let the Right One In airs Sundays at 10:00 on Showtime.