Tag Archives: Guillermo Del Toro

‘The Strain’ a gooey mess, but fun

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the strain david bradley

“The Strain” is an odd bird. Even besides the whole “vampires projecting fleshy six-foot-long stingers out of their mouths” thing.

It’s odd because it’s a TV series drawn from a series of three books that began life as a TV project.

Published in 2009, “The Strain” was written by movie director Guillermo del Toro and top-notch crime drama writer Chuck Hogan, who wrote “Prince of Thieves,” the hard-bitten Boston thriller made into the Ben Affleck movie “The Town.”

The two based “The Strain” and its two sequels, “The Fall” and “The Night Eternal,” on a TV series they wanted to develop.

The first book – and this is the plot familiar to viewers of the FX series, which is five episodes into a 13-episode first (?) season – follows the efforts of a small group of people – a couple of Centers for Disease Control scientists, an exterminator and a sword-wielding survivor of a World War II death camp – to convince authorities that New York City is the breeding ground for a deadly type of virus, It’s a disease that turns people into grotesque vampires, spreads rapidly – and has been deliberately released into the population after most of the passengers and crew of an airliner turn up dead on the runway at JFK.

“The Strain” is also odd in that, having read the books, I can’t quite imagine how the show can play out like Hogan and del Toro’s series of novels.

I won’t get into spoilers here, but suffice it to say that it would be an odd series indeed that starts as a medical thriller with supernatural overtones and morphs into … well, something else entirely.

“The Strain” is not what it seems. I’m not sure at what pace the plot will play out – and I’m pretty sure the series will be more faithful to the books than the adaptation of Stephen King’s “Under the Dome” has been – but it’ll be very interesting to see what happens by the end of this season. Or next, if there is one.

And those stingers. Sheesh.

‘The Strain’ coming to TV

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This is not surprising news: “The Strain,” the end-of-the-world-through-vampires trilogy of books written by Chuck Hogan and Guillermo Del Toro, is being turned into a TV series for FX.

It’s not surprising because “The Strain” trilogy – “The Strain,” “The Fall” and “The Night Eternal” – was originally conceived as a television series. And as a filmmaker and the guy who was tasked with bringing The Hulk to TV, Del Toro thinks and writes in a TV-friendly style.

But the news is interesting and could be good news for fans of the books. Or, at least, fans of the first book and elements of the second and third.

When “The Strain” came out in 2009, I thought it was one of the freshest and grimmest takes on vampire storytelling in years. The story plays out like a contagion thriller, with a scientist from the Centers for Disease Control, a World War II concentration camp survivor and an exterminator – yes, an exterminator – taking on a secretive vampire infestation of New York City.

The book’s plot is fun and the characters enjoyable, but the best part was the variation on vampire lore: The monsters were not sparkly dreamboats but pale, scary creatures with bloodsucking stingers that shot out several feet to snare victims. The heroes used some standard vampire-slaying tools but also used high-tech stuff like ultraviolet flashlights.

As good as the first book was, though, the succeeding volumes missed the mark with me. Maybe it was how dark they were. Maybe it was that it seemed Hogan and Del Toro painted themselves into a corner by going way, way too far too quickly.

At any rate, I’ll be interested to see what kind of show Del Toro and showrunner Carlton Cuse of “Lost” put on.

Here’s hoping they don’t go too far too fast.