The Strain Retrospective

The retrospective no one was asking for!

Vampires are very in right now. Just how popular are they? I have seen six new vampire films in theaters over the last three years, and there have been plenty of others that have gone direct to streaming in that time as well. That’s to say nothing of the many vampire novels, television series, and comic books that have been released in recent years. I’m certainly not complaining. I’m always happy to see a varied selection of stories to indulge in as a fan of those undead bloodsuckers.

When I saw that all four seasons of The Strain had recently come to Shudder, it piqued my interest. The Strain is a television series that originally aired on FX from 2014-2017 that was adapted from a trilogy of novels written by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan. I was a big fan of the novels, and I remembered enjoying the first season of the show despite not sticking with it beyond that. With the show staring me in the face whenever I opened the Shudder app and knowing Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein was coming soon, I decided now would be the perfect time to binge the series and see what (if anything) I’ve been missing.

Before diving into the show, let’s get into the Guillermo del Toro of it all. It should come as no surprise that I am a big fan of his work. The man is an Academy Award winner now, but he got his start doing plenty of genre films. That includes a couple of vampire movies. In fact, his very first feature film was a vampire movie called Cronos (1992). It’s a very original take on vampires involving a strange device containing a (magical?) insect, an evil businessman (played by Claudio Brook) seeking immortality, and Ron Perlman. File that information away for later. He also made a much more famous vampire movie a decade later called Blade II. The sequel to the 1998 film based on the half-vampire Marvel Comics character saw del Toro further flesh out the world of the vampire elite while also introducing a new strain of vampires called Reapers that feed on both humans and vampires and are spreading uncontrollably like a plague. They also look much more inhuman (these things are definitely not passing as human), and they feed by shooting a long proboscis out of their mouths that latch onto their victims. File that information away for later as well. Also, Ron Perlman is in it.

Blade II is actually the first Guillermo del Toro movie I ever saw. I saw it on the big screen as a teenager, and it pretty much made me a fan of his for life. Now imagine my excitement when he cowrote a novel about vampires with Chuck Hogan in 2009 called The Strain. As if that wasn’t exciting enough, it was merely the first book in a trilogy of novels that would include The Fall (2010) and The Night Eternal (2011).

The premise of The Strain is a clever one as it essentially combines the elements of Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) and Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend (1954) with a pinch of del Toro’s own Cronos and Blade II for good measure. I think the best way to look at it is that it begins at the Demeter portion of Dracula, but it substitutes an airliner for a ship and New York City for London. If you’re at all familiar with Stoker’s classic novel, then plenty of elements in this story will be familiar. An airliner carrying a huge coffin full of dirt in the luggage compartment mysteriously goes completely silent upon arrival at JFK International Airport. The CDC is called in to investigate, and our chief protagonist named Dr. Ephraim Goodweather (Eph for short) is introduced. It’s soon discovered that every passenger on the plane is dead save for a handful of survivors with no memory of what has happened. As you probably guessed based on everything I’ve written up to this point, the culprit is a Dracula analogue referred to as the Master who intends to spread his vampiric plague throughout the city. The only person who seems to understand what is happening is an elderly pawnshop owner named Abraham Setrakian who is a thinly veiled analogue for Abraham Van Helsing.

The vampires in The Strain are basically the Reapers from Blade II for all intents and purposes. They are hideous creatures that feed on their victims using the same kind of long proboscis shooting out of their mouths like the aforementioned Reapers. What’s especially unique about these vampires is that the method of transmission of the vampiric disease to others is by injecting tiny worms into the victim’s bloodstream that then release a virus that transforms them into a vampire. Pretty gross! Also, the vampires are typically referred to as strigoi in the novel. I’ll mostly refer to them as vampires here, but don’t be confused if I drop an occasional “strigoi” at times. The other primary characters in the book are Eph’s son Zach (a character you really grow to hate over the course of the three novels), a rat catcher named Fet, Nora (Eph’s coworker at the CDC, Gus (a former gang member who is fresh out of prison), Eichorst (a Nazi who has become a vampire and serves as the Master’s right hand strigoi), Eldritch Palmer (a wealthy businessman assisting the Master in order to achieve immortality as a reward), Kelly (Eph’s estranged wife), and Mr. Quinlan (a half-human and half-vampire hybrid who hates the Master and is basically just Blade from the Blade movies).

Let’s take a high level view of the three novels with the basic premise and characters now established. The Strain is essentially a story about the spread of this vampire plague in New York City and the select few who seem to understand just how serious things are. Not only are they up against the Master and his horde of vampires, but they’re also up against human enemies in positions of power who are standing in their way whether with malicious intent or ignorance. The Fall further fleshes out the characters and establishes some of the lore surrounding vampires. It turns out that there are actually seven vampires that essentially rule over all others referred to as the Ancients. The Master is one of them, but he’s a renegade who doesn’t play well with the other six. That means our human characters are actually caught in the middle of a vampire civil war. This is also the novel where we really get to know the Daywalker, Mr. Quinlan. I’m sorry. I mean “the Born,” Mr. Quinlan. The final novel in the trilogy is The Night Eternal, and it is a wild one. This one goes full I Am Legend with the post-apocalyptic setting, but it also goes completely bonkers with the vampire lore. I’ll save the spoilers for that lore when comparing and contrasting the final book with the final season of the show. If I haven’t been clear up to now, I really enjoyed these novels when I read them. They’re imaginative, fast paced, and full of interesting and engaging characters. Because of that, I was extremely excited when the show was announced. So how well does the series capture the spirit of the books? Let’s see!

Season One

The first season of the show sets out to adapt the first novel in the trilogy. I think that’s the perfect strategy. The novel itself was 401 pages when initially published, so it makes sense to adapt it into a thirteen episode season. I had remembered liking it when I first watched it, so I was curious how well it would hold up over ten years later. Great news! I loved it. The first episode in particular is phenomenal. It’s directed by Guillermo del Toro himself, and it feels like a short horror film more than a television pilot. It also really allows for a lot of story to be told with its seventy minute runtime. The pilot is great, but the entire season is really strong. It’s helped by having a terrific cast as well. Corey Stoll plays Eph (while wearing a terrible wig). The great David Bradley plays Setrakian. Kevin Durand steals every scene he’s in as Fet. Jonathan Hyde is suitably obnoxious as corrupt businessman (redundant) Eldritch Palmer. Richard Sammel is incredibly despicable as Eichorst. Those are some of the standouts from the main cast, but the season is also full of great cameos. Some of my favorites were Andrew Divoff (star of the Wishmaster movies), Larry Fessenden (brilliant indie horror director), Doug Jones (a Guillermo del Toro mainstay), and Regina King (you know damn well who Regina King is). The season overall is pretty faithful to the source material, but there are a couple of characters added who were not in the novel. One is a hacker named Dutch (played by Ruta Gedmintas) who initially works with Palmer before joining the heroes. She also becomes a romantic interest for…multiple characters throughout the series. Another character created for the show is Vaun (played by the great Stephen McHattie). When this character first showed up, I assumed he was Mr. Quinlan as he is a vampire leading an elite strike team of other vampires opposed to the Master. He’s later referred to as Vaun at the start of the second season, so I was pretty confused as to what happened. It turns out he was supposed to be Mr. Quinlan, but the showrunners decided that casting a sixty-eight year old (at the time) McHattie in a physically demanding role that required spending hours in the makeup chair may not have been the smartest decision.

Instead they retconned his character to be someone else and introduced Rupert Penry-Jones as Mr. Quinlan the following season. These minor changes did not impact my enjoyment of the season. I thought it was extremely well paced with strong performances and some surprisingly good looking special effects. Above all else, the season nails the horror elements. There are some legitimate scares and body horror throughout. One scene set in a morgue in one of the early episodes is especially creepy. If you’re a fan of vampires or just horror in general, then this season is well worth watching.

Seasons Two & Three

Oh no. Remember how the first season took thirteen episodes to adapt a 401 page novel? FX decided to go in a slightly different direction with how they adapted the second season. They decided to take the story in The Fall (a mere 320 pages) and stretch it out over two seasons totaling twenty-three episodes. This was a mistake as the great pacing of the first season gives way to numerous filler episodes. The highs are still high, but they are just much more spread out. The other issue with season two is the character of Zach (Eph’s son). In the first season, he’s portrayed as a sweet but naive kid played by Ben Hyland. Beginning with season two, he’s portrayed as an obnoxious little asshole played by Max Charles. You’re supposed to slowly lose faith in Zach over the course of the three novels, but the show really pushes things to the extreme. This is no knock on the actor. He is doing a great job being a jerk. It just doesn’t make for an especially enjoyable viewing experience. One little thing season two does that I do appreciate is they have Eph shave his head as a way to try and be more difficult for his enemies to notice him. The real reason they do this is so that the famously bald Corey Stoll can stop wearing a terrible wig. I never understood why they forced him to wear one in the first place. Were people really going to be upset that his hair didn’t match the character from the books? Very silly. I’m glad they came to their senses.

The second season was thirteen episodes, but the third season widely shortened to ten. I think overall it’s a better paced season due to that. The one thing I very much did not like was something they did with the character of Dutch. Taking a strong female character created specifically for the show who did not appear in the book and having her deal with attempted sexual violence felt so out of place and unnecessary. I truly do not know why this was added. The showrunners also decided to have a major character who dies in the second novel make it to the fourth season. I understand wanting to keep a popular character around for as long as possible, but it did make the end of the season a little less impactful.

Season Four

We’re back! FX learned its lesson from the previous two seasons and turned the third novel (371 pages) into a ten episode final season. Much better. This season matches the bleak tone and post-apocalyptic setting of The Night Eternal (so named because a nuclear winter has been triggered to block out the Sun and allow vampires to walk the streets during the day). There are plenty of satisfying moments meant to reward fans who have stuck with the series throughout this season. I don’t want to spoil anything for those who might still watch it, but everything is tied up by the finale. It never reaches the heights of the first season, but I still enjoyed it.

Okay. Now for the gigantic plot point from the novel that is completely abandoned by the show. If you want to completely avoid spoilers, turn back now. Still there? Alright. In The Night Eternal novel, we learn the secret history of the vampire race. They were spawned from an angel. You read that correctly. Biblical angels are responsible for vampires. As it’s explained in the novel, three angels were sent by God to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah: Michael, Gabriel, and Ozryel. Ozryel was overcome by his bloodlust once the killing commenced, and he ended up attacking his fellow angels to drink their blood. Appalled by his actions, God punished him by having the other angels cut him into seven pieces and had them scattered across the Earth. The seven pieces eventually gained sentience and morphed into the seven Ancients that became the first vampires. The seventh to be formed was the Master, and his rebellious attitude is because he was picked on by the other six Ancients for being the youngest. I’m not making any of this up. It’s all in the book. I swear. I gotta be honest: I was dying to see how the show would handle this reveal since it comes out of left field in the book. I was so disappointed that they left it out of the show completely. I understand that it’s a lot to ask of a series on basic cable to pull off something that bonkers, but it would have been fun to see them try. Alas, I guess it wasn’t meant to be. Even without that aspect, it’s still a pretty fun show that’s worth watching. If nothing else, watch the first season and enjoy some spooky Guillermo del Toro in preparation for Frankenstein later this year.