You Should Watch The Strain.

Get ready for a hilarious, gory thrill ride!

The Strain is one of those shows that is quite polarizing if you think about it. On one hand, people praise it for being an interesting take on the traditional vampire. On the other, people criticize it mercilessly for certain moments that make it dumber than a box of rocks. Although the professional contrarian in me would be inclined to side with the latter camp, the campy horror fan in me can’t help but love it.

In essence, it’s ten million kilos of cheese wrapped up in a package filled with goofy dialogue, idiotic decisions, hilarious moments, and some incredible scares. You should watch it.

Oh, that’s not enough for you? Fine. Read on.

Who Steals The Show?

These guys steal the show!

For being such a cheeseball show, The Strain actually has a great cast to back up its’ horror credentials. Corey Stoll leads the way as Ephraim Goodweather, a former CDC disease expert who is now struggling to develop a bioweapon to save New York from the rampaging vampires. Luckily, he is not alone in the fight. David Bradley, Samantha Mathis, and Ruta Gedmintas give very strong performances as Abraham Setrakian, Justine Feraldo, and Dutch Velders, respectively.

The villains are really nicely drawn out as well. Most notably, Richard Sammel plays a Nazi SS Commandant and powerful vampire by the name of Thomas Eichorst. He is perhaps the most interesting villain because you can chart his course from being an ordinary man to a sinister monster over the past three seasons. Mister Sammel did much of the heavy lifting, of course, adding some darkly humorous touches that feel quite disturbing.

Jonathan Hyde gives a noteworthy performance as Eldritch Palmer. Although his character is more of a stock villain, he is given a lot of material to work with by bouncing off of Sammel and the various incarnations of the Master. It’s a pleasure to watch, especially since he plays a significant role in the conspiracy as a human collaborator.

Of course, the biggest badasses in the story are Rupert Penry-Jones and Kevin Durand, who play Mister Quinlan and Vasiliy Fet. While Eph, Dutch, and Setrakian are a bit more cerebral, Quinlan and Fet have played the role of the action heroes in the story. And oh, do they steal every scene they’re in!

To get a bit particular about it, Durand’s performance is kind of interesting to me because it seems like it was patterned after the Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone flicks of the 80s and 90s. The only thing that’s missing are a ton of corny one-liners like this one.

Execution Matters.

Oops. They got caught. Now what?

For those of you that are not in the know, The Strain is a story that is sort of akin to Fear The Walking Dead in terms of a basic plotline. However, there is an overarching intelligence to the villainy that allows for several different storytelling approaches to show how the world goes to hell in a handbasket. It’s got scientific, mystical, and historical elements packed into one silly package.

A part of the charm of this show is that each character is sympathetic in their own way, which helps in the moments when things get scary. However, there are also so many goofy moments that you can’t help but laugh your way through any particular episode. For instance, Goodweather became a raging alcoholic as the infection began to spread like wildfire, adding several moments of hilarity to the proceedings. Meanwhile, Fet is making every attempt to save the world, so why not have him pick up a girl or two along the way because he’s just that damn awesome.

It just goes to prove that a lot of what we see in popular culture has been done before, so it’s the new twists and turns that make things exciting and fresh. You can also see Guillermo Del Toro’s fingerprints on this series through the segments with Gus (Miguel Gomez) and the Silver Angel (Joaquin Cosio), which are perhaps the cheesiest pieces of the entire saga.

The Creepy, Crawly Things.

You can really see all the details here.

It goes without saying that a cable show with the backing of one of Hollywood’s finest directors would have first rate attention to detail. Whether it is dealing with the past or the emerging hellscape in New York, viewers will get a sense of one of the mission statements of the show, which is to find the gothic in the now. You never really get a sense that anything is out of place or odd, even if it is used to make you laugh.

For instance, the strigoi stinger and blood worms are very gross, but they are deployed selectively. In some cases, the stringer can be used for some pitch black comedy or to give the producers a chance to screw with the audience. Speaking of which…

Addressing The Criticisms.

You can tell that the producers love us. Come on, Kelly! EAT HIM!

While this show may not be everyone’s cup of tea, I think that some of the criticisms against it are misplaced or come from a misunderstanding of what the show is actually about. In many ways, The Strain is a salute to B-movies from the past due to the scary yet campy atmosphere. Therefore, I wonder what people were expecting when they first saw that sometimes the protagonists act kind of stupidly because suspense and getting a laugh is more important in certain circumstances than coming up with a big move in the story.

Luckily, there are enough moments of brilliance to avoid a complete break-down of suspension of disbelief.

Of course, one cannot get away from this show without addressing one of the elephant in the room: Zach. A lot of people absolutely loathe this character because of his role in the Season 2 finale of the show, but I think it comes from the erroneous demand that a soap opera in the apocalypse be less like a soap opera in the apocalypse. In essence, we are talking about a story where vampires exist and are taking over the world, but the most unbelievable thing about it is a boy with mommy issues that doesn’t understand what the hell is going on until it’s too late?

Nah, I’m not buying it.

And by the way, I’m a book/comic reader, so let’s not forget about the total implausibility of what happens in Book Three. I’m going to avoid spoilers, but I might do another article on that in the future.

Conclusion.

Save the book, save the world.

To sum things up, I’d like to define what makes a show a success in my eyes. It’s not about whether or not the cinematography was just so or if everyone acts the way that we would expect. A show succeeds when it sets out an objective, goes after it, and accomplishes it without wasting the time of the viewers.

To me, The Strain is not this grandiose and perfect show, but it’s not trying to be. From the beginning, it evolved into a cheesy thrill ride that delivers laughs and scares in equal measure. It has badass heroes, chilling villains, pitch black humor, and a sense of foreboding that builds with each passing season.

It may be artery-clogging, but it’s all a horror fan could ever ask for.

And to top it all off, this is the first show I’ve seen outside of Tosh.0 where you can regularly live chat with the cast on Twitter. How cool is that?