Tag Archives: Kevin Durand

Uncategorized

A short review of Season 4 of “The Strain”

Leave a comment

The fourth and final season of “The Strain” was easily its weakest, but was still fun enough to merit an 8 out of 10.

Season 1 was a unique, detailed, methodically assembled techno-thriller crossbred with vampire mythology — you could tell that it was adapted from a pretty decent book series by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan.  The show’s subsequent seasons progressively meandered farther and farther into comic book territory … the fourth felt loosely and hastily plotted, with spotty and confusing exposition.  (I was considerably confused until late in the game about who deployed nuclear weapons in the war between vampires and humans, when they did so, and what their strategy was.)

But what the hell.  I still enjoyed this.  The writers here still know where their bread is buttered, and gave survival-horror fans more of the screwball guilty pleasures they were tuning in for.  There was plenty of blood and gore (even if it’s only the white, worm-infested vampire blood that I suspect was easier for the censors to approve). There were more of the show’s creepy, cringe-inducing monster effects.  And there was plenty of action — right up until a finale that was predictable but cool.  (If you’ve been following the show the way I have, do you not want to see machine guns, explosions, swords and severed vampire heads?)

Richard Sammel consistently outshined everyone in his role as the WWII Nazi turned vampire Himmler.  What an extraordinary villain.)  It’s a further testament to his talent that the man actually appears sublimely good-natured in real life.  (He interacts with his fans from time to time on Facebook.)

The show actually surprised me, too, by how attached I got to its characters.  It hasn’t always been a show that is strong on its characters, but … I’m going to miss them.  Vasily Fet (Kevin Durand) and “Dutch” (Ruta Gedmintas) were two in particular that I found myself surprisingly attached to — especially considering that Dutch was a superfluous character that seems to have been added only for sex appeal and romantic tension.  I was rooting for both of them.

So I’d still recommend “The Strain,” despite Season 4’s failings.  To quote Jack Nicholson’s Joker in 1989’s “Batman,” “I don’t know if it’s art, but I like it.”  (Yes, I do know that Walt Disney said it first.  Whatever.)

 

Season4Banner

Uncategorized

A short review of the Season 4 premiere of “The Strain”

Leave a comment

[THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR PAST SEASONS OF “THE STRAIN.”]  I love “The Strain.”  It’s weird, it’s wacky, it’s usually creepy, and the screenwriters seem to want to throw in everything but the kitchen sink in order to please horror fans.  It’s also the most ambitious horror show on television — it endeavors to depict nothing short of an entire vampire apocalypse, from its inception back in Season 1 to what appears to be a complete victory by the monsters at the start of its fourth (and apparently final) season.  Only the outstanding “Fear the Walking Dead” has attempted something like that.  And although “Fear” is the better show, it can’t match “The Strain’s” epic storytelling goals and its level of detail.

The writers’ energetic efforts almost always pay off.  Part of “The Strain’s” appeal is that you never know how far they’ll go.  And they do push the envelope so creatively that they sometimes hit upon ideas and story points that are grotesque and darkly creative.  I’m still enjoying this show even after I predicted back in Season 1 that the plot-driving creatures themselves would grow boring after our repeated exposure to them.  (I’m happy to be proven wrong.)

Regrettably, the Season 4 premiere suggests that the writers are now reaching too far, too fast.  It continued the show’s pattern of brave creative choices, but it was sloppy.  There were enormous changes in story and setting with insufficient exposition.  We jump nine months forward from the close of last season, when a nuclear explosion devastates New York, and our heroes are scattered.  We’re offered little information about how our protagonists arrived at their respective new junctures, and that is forgivable.  (It’s a convention of serialized storytelling like this that things can be explained in subsequent episodes.)  But the enormous changes in the overall milieu left me a little confused.

Following the nuclear conquest of New York last season, why would Philadelphia and other cities also be ruled by the vampires?  I understand that the nuclear winter is to blame for this, because the bad guys can move about by day.  But would a single bomb cause a sufficient nuclear winter to affect the entire Eastern Seaboard?  (Yes, I am aware that I am illustrating my ignorance of this subject.)

Or … is it the entire continent that’s affected, or the entire northern hemisphere?  Have other cities been bombed or not?  Why are the vampires seeking out more nuclear devices?  (We are given confusing information about these things through new story elements and dialogue.)  Furthermore, why is Vasiliy Fet (the likable Kevin Durand) trying get his hands on a nuke on behalf of the human resistance?  Is he planning on nuking an entire city, with both vampires and their human slaves?  If he neutralizes “The Master” in the remains of New York City, will it be worth it?

These are important plot and story elements that left me scratching my head.  What’s more, the season opener was further marred by some pretty spotty scripting and direction.  (The action sequence at the end was poorly done.)

The episode was still fun enough.  I’d rate it a 7 out of 10.  I’m just surprised that an episode that seems so hastily developed served as the season’s opener.

 

Uncategorized

A quick review of “The Strain” Season 1

Leave a comment

“The Strain” is a mostly successful attempt at serialized horror, adapted from the vampire novel of the same name by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan.  It’s a smart, fun, dark genre-buster combining a conspiracy thriller, an action adventure, a plague thriller and good old fashioned gross-out monster mayhem — there are even dashes of historical fiction via flashback.

It’s an ambitious story even for the original novel, covering vampirism as a viral epidemic that sweeps New York City.  The putative heroes are two CDC investigators — though viewer loyalties will shift from these stock characters to the cooler and more interesting supporting characters — the tragic old curio shop owner; the quirky, gigantic exterminator; the local petty criminal; and the penitent computer hacker.  The little boy is such a one-note character that he might as well be a prop.

The exterminator, Vasily Fet, is played beautifully by sci-fi fan favorite Kevin Durand. (I can’t help but wonder if the character’s last name is a “Star Wars” reference.)  He’s a good actor, and his size and voice make him damn interesting as either a hero or a villain.  (See “Lost.”)  David Bradley, the curio shop owner around whom much of the plot revolves, does a great job, especially considering how cheesy the dialogue given to him sounds.

But by far and away, actor Richard Sammel steals the show.  He is simply a fantastic bad guy — creepy, unsettling, frightening, hateful, insinuating and mysterious.  This show has a great villain, and I liked rooting against Sammel’s creep far better that I liked rooting against the somewhat cartoonish “Master.”

For much of the time, the combination of the above story elements works out well.  “The Strain” can be surprisingly creepy for a network show.  The creepy-crawlies look great, even if they are reminiscent of “the reapers” of “Blade II” (2002), also directed by del Toro.  (Wouldn’t it be great if there were a shared universe?)  I’ve always thought that one of the scariest aspects of the vampire mythos was that loved ones can become enemies — the series wisely capitalizes on this more than once.  And the entire conspiracy plotline actually is pretty unsettling, as it’s scripted convincingly and with some thought behind it.

Regrettably, all of these good things can’t sustain the scares and tension over the course of a full season of television. Once they are faced and defeated more than once, the vampires do lose a bit of their punch.  The flashbacks to Europe (trying to keep this spoiler-free) grow tiresome and predictable, no matter how cool and original the idea started off.  And compounding this is a great lack of tension supplied by the actors and screenwriters.  Everyone is way too relaxed.  It is probably the end of the world, via vampire apocalypse, and these chipper folks often seem like they’re kids meeting to work on an afterschool project.  This isn’t helped much by a final action set piece that is directed so awkwardly it’s embarrassing.

Still, “The Strain” really is worth a look, at least if only to see if it’s your cup of tea.  I actually do recommend it.

A  little trivia — several episodes were directed by none other than RoboCop himself, Peter Weller.

The_Strain_promotional_poster