This may be a hot take, but the movie’s remake gives us more interesting characters to bite into (pun totally intended). Lindqvist’s text explains Eli is cared for by a pedophile (!), but Alfredson’s film didn’t want to get into the weeds on that. In his movie, vampire Eli (Lina Leandersson) and her “father” Hakan (Per Ragner) have an ambiguous yet creepy relationship. We know he isn’t her father, but he also has no backstory or context as to why he cares for this girl.
I would argue the lack of backstory makes it more interesting as opposed to Reeves "explain everything" tendencies. But that's just me. Reeves tendency to hold the audience's hand and never let them decide for themself was just boring to me.
Reeves’ film gives Abby (Chloe Grace Moretz) and a man known only as The Father (Richard Jenkins) a more paternalistic connection, but it’s revealed to be superficial. It’s shown that The Father has been with Abby since he was a little boy, which makes her seem far more sinister. If Abby is an adult in a child’s body, is she a predator finding young boys? It also makes that film’s ending less positive when we see Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee) possibly go down the same path as The Father.
You could argue that same take is there in LTROI. You could also argue it's a love story. That's the creepy brilliance of Alfredson's film. It gives you more to stew over come the end and more to debate. I was never into Reeve's hand holding. But that's just me.
Isaiah is a lonely little boy, like Owen (Smit-McPhee, 2010) and Oskar (Kare Hedebrant, 2008), but he isn’t prone to violence.
This is the one thing that does make me wonder about the show as we go forward. From that first episode, I too didn't detect a single hint of blood lust in Isaiah. He's lonely and bullied but I didn't get that same sense of blood lust. It does make me wonder if the show will delve into this as we go forward. Is it something that will come to the surface as the show goes on? Or will Ellie bring it out in him? It's the one thing I am almost keen to see how they play out now based on the first episode
