Book Review: "The Strain"

A caveat: this review was written "unemployed nerd-style" which means basically I stood in a Barnes and Noble and read the first 20 pages to see if it was something I'd read if I had money to buy a new book. That's how I'm rolling these days, and I anticipate it's a style The New York Review of Books will be picking up shortly as well.

Boy, was I shocked to discovered that "The Strain," the first novel by "Pan's Labyrinth" director Guillermo del Toro and not the first novel by his co-author Chuck Hogan, was not at all about a terrible hamstring pull but instead about vampires! As you know, I'm all about the vampires these days what with watching glittery David Bowie a not-at-all disco Robert Pattinson pitch undead woo to Kristen Stewart in "Twilight" yesterday. So I was pleased as punch to learn I'd be reading about bloodsuckers in "The Strain."

In my 20 pages, I was able to read a very intriguing prologue and one full chapter. The thing pulls you in from paragraph one, starting off with a sort of fairytale told by a grandmother to her soup-guzzling grandson. It's pre-World War II Eastern Europe and the grandmother is telling the boy a story about a gentle giant who loved children but who was turned into a crazy, not-so-gentle giant who loved to maybe eat children after a bad episode in the woods with some wolves. And then, sadly, we later see the child all grown up running from the Nazis with his grandmother. And then more bad stuff happens and I'm assuming we'll see this young man again later in the story.

Then we flash forward to present-day New York when a plane lands and immediately goes dark on the runway. Cue up all sorts of airport staff frantically trying to figure out what happened inside the plane. They approach it and get ready to open its doors and I'm standing there thinking, no, don't open the doors. Just run! It's vampires! The only character who even remotely listened to me was the nervous nelly luggage cart driver who thinks to herself, "Something's going to eat me in there." Exactly. So run!

And that was 20 pages...

My ham-fisted descriptions do not do justice to the genuinely eerie vibe that del Toro and Hogan inject into this story. I was getting nervous just standing there in a crowded B&N. I'd be huddled under the blankets already if I'd cracked this thing open on a dark and stormy night. "The Strain" is not great literature, but it is a great read -- a perfect summer confection to be enjoyed and consumed in one or two sittings.

You can definitely see del Toro's movie-maker tendencies in this book. Everything is choppy and filled with prose jump-cuts from scene to scene. It works well as a fictional devise, though, building a nice bit of tension and unease. I would have kept turning pages if I'd had more time and if the girl behind the counter would have stopped looking at me like I was going to stuff the book down my pants and run. I only steal hearts, lady, not hardcovers!

Overall grade for first 20 pages: A-
Would I buy this book if I were employed? Yes

DVD Review: Pan's Labyrinth

Feeling too happy lately? Too rich, too pretty, too many fluffy kittens and chocolate bars falling softly from the sky? Then have I got a movie for you: Pan’s Labyrinth. Brilliant, gorgeous and guaranteed to depress and existentially confuse you in deep and pervasive ways, this movie is wonderful and haunting and should have been the Academy’s best picture winner for 2007.

Written, directed and produced by Guillermo del Toro, the story takes place in Spain, after the Fascists have taken control. A young girl, Ofelia, accompanies her pregnant mother to a military outpost where she will be living with her new stepfather, a cruel captain whose mission is to wipe out the last remaining rebels living in the nearby mountains. One afternoon, Ofelia wanders into a nearby stone maze and meets a faun – yes, one of those mythical dudes, sans pipes – who tells her she may be a princess whose family rules benevolently in a different and, one would hope, better reality. In order to prove herself, Ofelia must complete three tasks, each more frightening than the last yet still less traumatic than her life with the captain.

I’m usually a cranky movie watcher, ready to pounce on any weakness or flaw, but honestly, there is nothing that this film did not do well. The acting was uniformly excellent, especially the central performance of young Ivana Baquero as Ofelia. She exuded enough strength and bravery to serve as the perfect guide to lead us through this tale. The script was taut, the pacing fast, the characters heartbreaking and real. And visually, the cinematography, costumes and set design meshed to create a world that seemed new yet real and inevitable all at the same time.

Pan’s Labyrinth left me feeling as through I’d just run the most depressing marathon of all time – and finished last. Ultimately, though, it’s a small price to pay to experience such an exceptional film.