TV series · 2014
The Strain
An FX horror drama from Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan, following a vampire outbreak that tips over into full-blown apocalypse.
- Year
- 2014
- Created by
- Guillermo del Toro, Chuck Hogan
- Starring
- Corey Stoll
- Seasons
- 4
- Episodes
- 46
- Network
- FX
- Country
- United States
- Original language
- English
- Kind of horror
- Vampire, Apocalypse, Body
This one is del Toro through and through: a vampire outbreak that starts small and ends up looking a lot like the end of the world. He and Chuck Hogan created it together, building on their own novels, so there is that slow, dread soaked build before everything properly tips over.
The horror here is the body kind, mixed with the creeping dread of a disease nobody can quite stop in time. It is not jump scares. It is the sort of fear that gets under your skin, something spreading, something changing people from the inside, and everyone arguing about it while it spreads further.
Four seasons is a proper commitment, so this is one for a night when you want to sink into something rather than dip in for an hour. Lights low, blanket up, and don't answer the door until it's finished.
If you like your horror with teeth, quite literally, and don't mind a slow burn that turns into chaos, this one earns its running time.
If you like this, try
Being Human
A vampire, a werewolf and a ghost share a house and try, badly, to pass as normal people.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
An ordinary teenager becomes the one person standing between her town and the vampires and demons that hunt it.
Dracula
The BBC's own three-part go at Dracula, with Claes Bang as the Count.
Fear the Walking Dead
The Walking Dead's other family, watching civilisation come apart from somewhere else entirely.