(4) SF: THE STRAIN
(2014-2017: SEASONS 1-4)

It’s a vampire apocalypse in a box!

A vampire horror series that portrays vampires as the blood-sucking parasitic abominations they are. (Yes – I have fantastic racism against vampires. Stake them all in the sun, I say. Except hot vampire girls, of course. And there’s none of those in this series). In this case, vampirism is spread by the worm-like parasites that crawl from their bodies, one of which was depicted burrowing into an eye in an infamous promotional poster. (It’s reminiscent of the Lovecraftian vampire parasite things in the pulpy Necroscope book series by Brian Lumley).

It’s a welcome relief from the sexy (or worse, sparkly) vampires of True Blood (or worse, Twilight) and most vampires in popular culture these days – the vampires in The Strain are distinctly unsexy vile abominations of extreme body horror. It’s hard to be sexy when your (male) genitalia have atrophied and dropped off, while your excretory organs have fused together into a cloaca. Eww!

The series is the brainchild of Guillermo de Toro (yes, THAT Guillermo de Toro) and Chuck Hogan, based on their novel trilogy of the same name (albeit one originally conceived as a story line for a television series). The series opens with CDC medical staff called to an airliner in which everyone appears to have succumbed to a mysterious viral infection or disease. Or at least, so the authorities surmise – instead, it is worse. Much worse.

Soon, New York finds itself battling for its very existence against an ancient enemy with humanity itself at stake (heh).

FANTASY OR SF?

I actually hesitated over the genre classification of this one between fantasy or SF – let’s face it, it’s primarily horror and rivals The Haunting of Hill House as the most distinctively horror series in my top ten.

While it evokes the supernatural dark fantasy or horror of the Dracula novel in a number of points, notably in its opening scene and mystery basically as a modern version of Dracula coming to England, its depiction of vampires and vampirism is essentially more the SF trope of the Virus akin to the zombie apocalypse. It’s not just vampirism as viral infection of course – it’s also Lovecraftian parasitic infection to boot.

HORROR

Well, obviously.

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)