The Strain Season 1 - DVD

Content: Dr. Ephraim Goodweather (Corey Stoll) and his colleagues at the Center for Disease Control are amazed when they find over 200 passengers mysteriously deceased on a plane at New York's JFK airport. The four survivors, who can remember nothing, are immediately quarantined to prevent the outbreak of a possible epidemic. But at first, everything seems fine with them, so they are released to go about their normal lives. But when they begin to show signs of a mysterious illness, and then the bodies of the other passengers disappear, Goodweather suspects that they are dealing with something completely new and extremely dangerous. And indeed: tiny worms turn people into bloodthirsty vampires who now haunt New York. Together with his colleague Nora (Mía Maestro), the intrepid exterminator Vasily (Kevin Durand) and the old vampire hunter Abraham Setrakian (David Bradley) Goodweather wants to save New York from the vampire virus. At that point, however, he has no idea just how powerful an enemy they're up against or what influential allies he has.

The Strain is based on filmmaker Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan's trilogy of novels The Strain, which also enjoyed great success as a comic book. The story derives its appeal from the fact that it takes the vampire myth back to its monstrous origins and embeds it in a modern metropolitan scenario. Fear of epidemics or terrorism are thereby skillfully packed into a mystical horror twist, which knows how to captivate in its unusual mixture simply outstanding. True, the series is far from being free of clichés or logic holes. But especially in the first episodes, del Toro and the other directors perfectly manage to make up for minor and major weaknesses with suspense, atmosphere and a few surprises.

Even when looking into the past of Setrakian and his first encounters with the bloodthirsty enemy during World War II, the story is able to build up a tremendous amount of suspense. The preliminary climax comes in the eighth episode, where the extent of the threat is made clear in a claustrophobic scenario. In this exciting episode, Ruta Gedmintas also joins the cast as hacker Dutch, who will develop into one of the most interesting characters of the series later on.

Although there are some clearer weak points, especially towards the end of the season - the design of the Master, for example, takes a lot of getting used to - overall, The Strain offers very good and rousing vampire entertainment. The dense atmosphere, good actors, a good portion of horror and the various plot lines, which are almost all grippingly implemented, make the series a successful adaptation of the successful novel. If you want to see some really nasty vampires that don't suck their victims dry in the classic manner, and if you just want to enjoy a thrilling fantasy horror series, you should definitely give this first season a chance. Absolutely worth seeing!

Picture + Sound: There is nothing to complain about the technical quality of the DVD implementation of the series. The picture is absolutely clean and convinces with a very atmospheric color scheme. The overall sharpness is also on a good level and reveals here and there also a more than convincing detail representation, which has even in dark scenes hardly noteworthy quality losses. The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix allows the rather centrally mixed dialogue to come through clearly and powerfully, while some well-executed effects such as gunfire, explosions and of course the snarling of the vampires provide audible movement on the surround channels every now and then. Good!

Extras: The DVD box set has three featurettes to offer as bonuses. The first DVD has a short overview of the making of the series (approx 13:38 mins). DVD 2 then has another short documentary on the novel adaptation (approx. 9:15 mins) to offer, while the featurette on DVD 4 invites you to visit Setrakian's lair (approx. 9:24 mins). Not really mind-blowing, but especially for fans of the series well worth watching extras.

Conclusion: After the novels and the comics, the series adaptation of the vampire saga The Strain by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan can now also inspire. Even if some elements, such as the design of the master, falls a little short of expectations, the fight against the Strigoi in modern New York offers enough excitement and atmosphere to console over minor weaknesses. The first season presents itself on DVD in good picture and sound quality. The bonus offer is a bit meager, but well worth watching. The bottom line for this series is a very clear: Absolutely recommendable!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp