The Strain
by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan
copyright 2009
read (almost) in August 2013
horror rated 5: readable, but only if there's nothing else
re-rated 3/10: so bad it's embarrassing
Is there no modern horror which did not come to light in Nazi Germany ? Is there no evil creature which is understood by anyone other than a mysterious old man with a communication problem ? Is there no cliche left unused by this author ?
Good grief.
I feel the urge to take the hero and shake him, shouting in his face: Listen to the old man you fool ! It's obviously a vampire !
But no. The hero will reject all the obvious clues until his own wife and or son are face to face with the vampire. Cliche after cliche after cliche.
Including the brand name cliche. You know, where the hero does not just get drunk... He gets drunk on Smirnoff plus freshly squeezed Valencia orange with just three drops of eureka lemon, while debating the professionalism of a barman who would stoop to using only two drops of the vital lemon juice... All intended to make us believe that the author knows what he is writing about.
Then a baggage handler casually drives around the airport -- with no reference to Ground Control, who manage and monitor all ground traffic at any airport.
The author's knowledge is as deep as he can be bothered to Google.
Author ? Singular ? The book cover has del Toro in very large font. I'm guessing that del Toro had very little to do with the actual writing of the book.
Still... a vampire made up of red worms... Except for the large tongue which is possibly an after-market add-on. The worms hide inside and control a body. Hmmm... Haven't heard that one since Stephen Donaldson used it. Except that Donaldson used beetles and he didn't try to make his beetles intelligent.
Anyway, half way through the book and a new vampire is threatening to eat his own family. Wife and two cute children. How long can he fight the hunger ? How long can the author drag out the suspense ? Who cares ?!
There are two possible cliches. One, the vampire finally eats the family. Unpleasant. I don't want to read about it. Or two, the cute children survive. And as a cliche -- that's even worse.
Some day I may finish reading this book. Right now, I am not interested.
If you enjoy clichéd horror you may enjoy this book. I don't, and I don't.
===
18mar14: It's six months since I wrote the review. In that six months I have attempted to continue reading The Strain. Attempted -- and failed.
It is just weak cliche piled on bad cliche piled on awful cliche. Perhaps "The Strain" refers to the required efforts of the reader ?!
I'm ready to re-rate this book as four out of ten: bad but could be read. Although I am finding that it is, in fact just too bad to be read... Let's rate it at "three: so bad it's embarrassing".
If ever I manage to finish the book (it was a gift, so I don't like to give up) then I shall post a final comment.
===
June 2020: While I think of it... I never did finish this book. Never will, I threw it out. The book is so bad that I had no interest in in watching the bleeding obvious as it ludicrously ground on.
====
Problems ? Solved
No comments:
Post a Comment