Horror writer Dan Simmons hit the nail in the coffin when he said that vampire genre has grown a tad anemic. Thanks to Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire and Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight, undead emos are free to lurch rather than lurk and vacillate between sucking the marrow out of their next meal and falling in love with him or her. This type of vamp has turned their race into sensitive fashion icons that pale in comparison to their frightening Romanian roots.
Yet, thank the devil that these creatures are immortal as long as they have their share of thick plasma milkshake. They still have time to make amends for their frail showing these past two decades and get back much of their viciousness. One of its saviors is Guillermo Del Toro, director of Blade, Pan’s Labyrinth and J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit. He is bringing back the bite in vampires in the same vein as Steve Niles’ 30 Days of Night with his new book The Strain.
The Strain, co authored with 2005 Hammett Crime Literature Awardee Chuck Hogan, advances the vampire mythology to the millennium by shifting its origins to a more biological rather than demonic perspective. Hence, enriching readers to see vampires in a new light but still keeping their unnerving demeanor.
Vampire outbreak
Guillermo’s vampires are not spawns of an unholy creation but a terrifying viral outbreak. The novel starts with a plane safely landing with its 200 passengers dead except for four persons. The case is then handled by Center of Disease Control Dr. Eph Goodweather who looks into it as an unexplainable virus. His hunch right as it is turns out to be a virus with its dead passengers incubating themselves to transform into vampires as their internal organs mutate, their blood turns white, and their esophagus grows a handy stinger to drain their victims.
Thus, The Strait brings back vampires to what they truly are, unapologetic gluttonous monsters with the twist that they are spreading a speedy rate. They are mindless, agile, and have no qualms about feasting you in a busy crowd, dingy alleyway, or even in the privacy of your home. Anything for a quick bite is their motto. Reading them hunt in the The Strain is like watching BBC’s Planet Earth except in an concrete jungle. As much as you feel for its prey, you can’t help but root for these carnal vampires to get their target. The results are always messy in a blood curling way.
Guillermo’s Fear Blender
Yet, Guillermo’s uses The Strain, more than its supernatural aspect, to prey on our fears that are new and old. It looks like the authors have written the story by putting our phobias into a blender and using the undead as vehicle to bring them out. The beginning starts with a plane acting as bomb for the outbreak that evokes the haunting image of 9/11. At the same time, we have a vampire virus that reeks of swine flu.
However, Guillermo states or the in his recent interviews that horror gets its malevolent power from invading familiar sacred spaces such as our homes or streets that we walk in. This is clearly depicted in scenes where the characters realize that their relatives are coming back home as vampires out to infect them. Even more horrifying is the violation of oneself as some scenes are told from the perspective of newly turned vampires. The transformation is “piss in your pants” chilling as these new bloodsuckers lose their will to the virus and give in to feeding on their loved ones without much remorse. These moments are hard to put down and have effectively entranced me, a reader, as much as the classic vamps stories have done before.
All this is done with Guillermo’s knack for good pace that keeps every page as frightful as the next. He is the master of fearful anticipation as his words still manage to scare and haunt readers each moment, even if some of events can be predicted chapters away. Cleverly written, the authors prove once again that nothing make us more alive like the undead.
Visual feast
It will come as no shock if The Strain becomes a film to be directed by the author himself. The book plays out well like a movie already with gruesome moments in place. It will certainly be a visual feast, anything but pretty I can tell. Also, I can’t wait till this book becomes pandemic among readers. It will make for more interesting costumes for Halloween 2009 as these vamps don’t bleed red but white, have stingers for tongues, and some like to run in the buff.
For entranced fans of the sensitive vamp, try getting bitten by his carnivorous brother. He may not be as pretty or as romantic under the pale moonlight. However, he’ll surely still get your blood racing and feeling humanly vulnerable but in a different way. His bite will have you screaming for more, no doubt about that.
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The Strain available at Powerbooks. Website: http://www.thestraintrilogy.com.
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Bite me at readnow@supreme.ph.