Last night we watched the premiere of The Strain (2014-2017), presumably a post-Apocalyptic vampire-zombie horror series.
Scene 1: A Berlin-New York plane is about to land. The flight attendant spars with the standard airplane types: an imperious Very Important Person (in coach?), an Adorable Little Girl, a loud-mouthed Rock Star (Jack Kesy, left). Then she's called to the galley, where the other flight attendant tells her that there's something moving in the cargo hold and banging on the latch. They panic. A giant thing jumps out and grabs them. It happens too fast to see what it is.
Scene 2: An air traffic controler tells his boss, Bishop, that the Berlin-New York flight landed without getting clearance, then cut off communication. They drive out to take a look -- nothing electronic is working inside, and the body of the plane is cold ("like a dead animal"). They somehow figure out that everyone inside is dead, and call the TSA, the CIA, the FBI, Homeland Security, the CDC.... If I had a dollar for every time someone said "Bishop, look at this!"
Scene 3: We meet the focus character, Eff, short for Ephraim (Corey Stoll), one of those cockey, arrogant, smooth-talking types that should be a con artist, but instead works for the Center for Disease Control. But right now he's having a mandatory Family Counseling Session (in the middle of the night?) with his young son and estranged wife. She left him because "You were never home. You were always off preventing millions of people from dying in pandemics." Gee, how selfish!
By the way, Max Charles, who played Eff's young son Zack, is now 18 years old, and has a physique.
Scene 4: Eff arrives at the airport, where agents from 12 agencies are having a dick-size contest to see who gets to investigate the plane first. His is bigger.
Scene 5: Two thugs try to rob a pawn shop, but the elderly owner. Mr. Setrakian, easily subdues them. Then he returns to the 1930s cartoon he was watching, but it's been pre-empted by a news report abou the plane. "He's back!" he exclaims. "I can't go through it all again!" Then he goes to a secret room, candlelit with old-fashioned music playing (does he just keep it like that all the time?). He calls a pulsating blob-like thing in a jar "my dear," and feeds it some of his blood. So it's his dead wife?
Scene 6: Eff and fellow agent Nora strip down to put on hazmat suits (we see her boobs and some of his chest). Plot dump: they were having sex back before Eff's wife left him. And he's upset over her new boyfriend, a year after the breakup? Talk about double standards! This guy is a sexist jerk!
They investigate the plane. Eff examines the little girl from Scene 1: no trauma, no defensive wounds, no evidence of poisoning. What killed them all? Suddenly they see some goop smeared all over the plane, invisible except under ultraviolet light. Plus...four passengers are alive after all: the pilot, the Rock Star, the Very Important Person, and a scaredy-cat guy. And the Professor and Mary Anne....
Scene 7: The diabolical-looking white-haired Herr Eichhorst, whose eyes have an inner lid, like a snake, takes the elevator to the top floor of a skyscraper. He meets with the valet Fitzwilliam (Roger Cross, left) and the elderly, bedridden Eldritch Palmer I'm not kidding, some lady 100 years ago thought that Eldritch was a good baby name. It's probably a reference to the science fiction novel "The Three Stigmata of Eldritch Palmer," but I can't see the connection.
Scene 8: At the airport with Eff, Nora, some bigwigs, and Sean Astin (who must have found it easy to memorize his script: 90% of his lines consist of "Eff, take a look at this, right now!!") They tour a makeshift morgue, where over 200 bodies are waiting for autopsy, and discuss what to tell the families, who have already arrived. In 2 hours? Wouldn't most of the families be in Germany, or in various distant parts of the U.S.?
Scene 9: They interview the four survivors in quarantine. Rock Star is covered with tatoos of Satanic-looking symbols. Eff asks if he's really a Satanist. "No, I'm just in it for the pussy." Boo! Can't we go through one scene without hearing about sex with ladies?
Next they check the cargo for anything toxic. 10,000 condoms. 10 plasma tvs. And a mysterious 9-foot tall chest that isn't on the flight manifest. "It looks like a coffin," Nora says, although it looks nothing like a coffin.
When they open it, surprise! It's full of dirt. By this point, you've figured out what's going on anyway, but in case you need to be hit over the head with it, vampires must sleep on soil from their native land.
One of the bigwigs gets ahold of the Berlin airport to ask about the mysterious box. While he's yelling in German, he wanders to a different part of the storeroom, where a green pulsating blob is pulsating. Suddenly it turns into a humanoid and extrudes tubes that drain all of his blood. Wouldn't the vampire be full after drainng the blood of 200 people a couple of hours ago?
Scene 10: Herr Eichman approaches the thug Gus (Miguel Gomez), and tells him that he has to do one final job to get his brother's probation and his mother's immigration status cleared up: pick up some cargo at the airport. He gives him a card to use in case there's any trouble.
Scene 11: The families of the flight victims screaming at Eff: "You just talk, but you never do anythng!" It's been three hours! The father of the little girl screams "Don't you have a heart? Don't you have a family?" Of course, every adult man in the universe has a wife and kids.
In the midst of the ruckus, Sean Astin tells Eff "You've got to look at this." Yet again. Pawn Shop Owner Mr. Sarkarian (the one with the blob-wife in a jar) is at the airport, blabbering nonsense like "You have to kill all the survivors and burn all the bodies! This can't happen again!" Plus he has a sword. Whoa, if he was black, the police would shoot him. As it is, they arrest him.
He's taken to jail, where he must stay until Monday. His cellmate notes that he is a Holocaust survivor. Don't tell me -- the Nazis were all vampires?
Scene 12: Another "Eff, you've got to look at this." The bodies all have a sharp incision with no bruising or trauma -- "no instrument can do that" -- and instead of blood, they are full of green goop. So the head vampire goopified over 200 people simultaneously, in a few seconds? There are also some weird parasitic worms around. Eff thinks they are "beautiful."A jerk and a wacko.
Another "Eff, you've got to look at this." The chest/coffin has vanished! Security cam footage (from an isolated storeroom?) reveals that it shot up toward the ceiling. But it weighs a ton! What could do that?
Scene 13: Eff calls Sean Astin: "Stop every truck and van trying to leave the airport, and search it for that chest!"
Uh-oh, Thug Gus is trying to leave with the chest in his van. He's stopped by security, but when he flashes his card, Sean intervenes and lets him go. Oh no, Sean is in cahoots with the vampires! He exclaims: "I came through for them this time, but now I'm done!"
Scene 14: Mortician begins performing autopsies on all 200 corpses. He discovers that their internal organs are reassembling, changing inito new ones. Suddenly the bodies all rise up from their cadaver tables and body bags, even the ones who are partially dissected, and attack! No neat incisions here -- they tear him apart like zombies. (Some nice male butts interspersed with the ladies).
Wait -- why are they naked? They're still in body bags -- who undressed them?
Scene 15: Thug Gus drives the van over the bridge. He calls his Mom, who is making breakfast (at 5:00 am?), to say that he will be home soon. A voiceover says some gibberish about love: "it's the beacon that guides us home when no one is there," and so on.
Scene 16: The Little Girl's dad goes home. Suddenly she appears at the French doors. She comes in, says "I'm cold," and they hug. Her eyes now have an inner lid, like a snake. I expect her to bite Daddy. Why doesn't she bite him? The end.
Beefcake: A flash of chest, a little butt.
Gay Characters: I understand that there's a bisexual woman later on, but for now it's husbands and wives all the way down.
Annoying Characters:"Take a look at this!" Eff.
Heterosexism: Lots.
My Grade: In spite of the numerous plot holes, the premise is actually intriguing: vampire hoardes taking over the world. And the special effects are excellent. C+.