Mysteriously absent from most critics’ end-of-year lists, The Strain earns a place alongside more celebrated current dramas The Leftovers, Intruders, Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead as it, too, is based on a literary source. A schlock-horror vampire contagion yarn, The Strain was adapted by Mexican monster maestro Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy, Pacific Rim) and co-writer Chuck Hogan from the first novel of their trilogy about a proposed takeover of the human race by descendents of an ancient vampiric line. Ironically, el Toro first pitched it as a TV series in 2006, but Fox turned him down. (The network later relented, and commissioned it for cable outlet FX, although it shows here, surprisingly, between Dynamo reruns on Watch.)
First, forget Twilight’s sexy vampires. The Strain’s do not seduce their victims via erotic necking. Rather, bloodsucking is assisted by a six-foot long, fanged phallic proboscis, which shoots across a room and implants capillary worms beneath the victim’s skin.
Del Toro is a fan of Polish folkloric tradition, in which vampires possess these “stingers”. (Perhaps it’s a companion to the vampire’s gynaecological, sideways-opening mouth in del Toro’s film Blade II.)
In an audaciously effective old-school horror prologue, a panicked member of cabin crew on a plane heading for JFK whimpers, “There’s something alive in the hold!” By the time it lands, almost everyone on board is dead. First on the scene is investigating epidemiologist Ephraim Goodweather (Corey Stoll – the troubled congressman in season one of House of Cards), a dedicated Center for Disease Control whitecoat with child-custody issues and an obvious wig, whose discoveries about the mystery virus see him gagged by the authorities for fear of starting a panic. A panic starts. There are further disaster movie allusions in Goodweather’s motley gaggle of allies who unite in the basement of a Harlem pawn shop owned by Treblinka survivor and silver-sword-wielding Van Helsing type David Bradley (yes, the newsagent from Broadchurch). Arming themselves B&Q style with silver-fitted nailguns and UV lamps in order to battle the infectious but photosensitive foe and boasting a Ukrainian rat exterminator (Martin the mercenary from Lost), a glamorous English hacker (The Tudors’ Ruta Gedmintas), and a Hobbit (Sean Astin) among their number, they drive around New York in a borrowed bread van like a 15-certificate Scooby Doo gang.
There’s slime, sewage and seared flesh aplenty, as well as enjoyably overcooked dialogue (“You don’t like terrorists, try negotiating with a virus”), and an actually quite daring series of concentration camp flashbacks, in which the original, Voldemort-styled Master drinks the blood of incarcerated Jews, enabled by German actor Richard Sammel’s chilly undead Nazi. Nobody’s going to be comparing The Strain to Homeland, or even the more austere, languid Walking Dead, but horror is designed to work on our deepest fears and the show’s arrival in a year where Ebola panic spread beyond West Africa boosted its topical appeal (the real CDC declared America’s first case in September). The vampires’ subterranean lair is also discovered beneath the site of the 9/11 attacks, a reminder of the last time the city was under siege. (Or it would be if it wasn’t shot in Toronto.)
After a reasonably gradual build-up, during which the four survivors, including a laughable Ozzy Osborne type, show vampiric symptoms and drink their loved ones, events escalate pretty rapidly around episode six, leaving the writers and directors (including RoboCop actor Peter Weller) straining to maintain fever pitch, but you’ll want to watch to the end as I did, as it’s truly infectious.
