I really liked "The Strain," the new vampire novel co-written by "The Hobbit" director Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan. It's smart, it's very New York and it treats vampirism like a biological illness. Not necessarily a treatable one mind you, but it flips the vampire myth script on its head rather nicely.
The book is the first volume in a planned trilogy. It's easy to see a del Toro movie franchise growing out of the idea, but that's not what he has in mind for "The Strain." In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, the filmmaker describes what his hopes are for the story and where the idea came from.
“I was watching ‘The Wire’ on cable and I was addicted to it,” del Toro told the LA Times (good taste, Guillermo!). “I really felt caught up in this idea of doing a procedural, a limited cable series, which married the ideas of biology, of anatomy, of vampirism and evolved through the seasons into the spiritual and mythological aspects of the theme – and always with the everyday details and prosaic settings, and the rhythms of a procedural.”
Only in a mind like Guillermo del Toro's can "The Wire" beget a "Strain" TV series, and bless him for it. Unfortunately, the realities of the television world got in the way as early as the pitch phase. “[Fox, whom del Toro has a deal with,] said two things: It’s too expensive, first of all, and what we would really love is a vampire comedy."
Now I've read "The Strain" cover to cover. The story could be reshaped and twisted to suit a variety of more serious sub-genres. Emphasis on serious. Comedy isn't an option, and it's an opinion that the filmmaker shared. "That was my first and only encounter with television. I retreated quickly.”
Surprisingly, the Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula" also played a significant role in del Toro's designs on delivering "The Strain" as a procedural. "['Dracula'] was all written in letters, documents and recordings. It utilized cutting-edge technology for the time with typewriters and voice recorders. It was very much supposed to be ‘on right now’ for readers." Not quite CSI territory, but to be fair, "Dracula" was written in 1897.
Unfortunately, del Toro's defeat on the TV front isn't a signal that fans of the book can hope for a film series instead. The stories are just not written that way. Besides which, del Toro's upcoming slate is far too packed for him to squeeze in what will most likely be an expensive, time-intensive vampire trilogy.
Have you read "The Strain"? Are you on board with del Toro's idea for a TV series adaptation delivered as a procedural? Can you see the story working as a movie?
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