TV Show - The Strain

Premiered: July 13, 2014
Four Seasons, last season July, 2017
Number of Episodes: 46 (13-13-10-10)
Length of Episode: 45 minutes
IMBd: 7.3
RT Critic's Consensus:
Season 4: 100% The Strain concludes on a high note with a climactic season that will remind viewers of the series' initial bite.
Season 3:  55% Consensus: Content with mediocrity, The Strain suffers under the weight of a stagnant story, scraping by on the pedigree of its style and visual effects.
Season 2:  77% he Strain's gory action helps compensate for an unfocused narrative, while the show's political and philosophical subtext add necessary heft for adult viewers.
Season 1:  84% The Strain makes the most of its familiar themes through an effective mix of supernatural thrills and B-movie gore -- though it may not appeal to everyone.
cag: 4/Liked it a lot for some unknown reason....
Produced by FX, watched on HULU
Wikipedia

Characters:
Dr. Ephriam Goodweather (Corey Stoll)
Abraham Setrakian (David Bradley)
Vasily Fet (Kevin Durand)
Dutch (Ruda Gelmintas)
Mr. Quinlan (half vampire, son of The Master) (Rupert Penry-Jones)
Palmer (who became The Master) (Jonathan Hyde)
Eichorst (undead vampire) (Richard Sammel)
Zach Goodweather (Ephraim's son) (Max Charles)

My comments:  Weird and creepy, and I loved it...for the most part.  The Master vampire (who can switch from body to body with the gorriest transfer of worms flowing from mouth to mouth, yuck!) and his army of ghouls who suck blood and turn humans in a particularly creepy way with a fat, long snake-like tongue, take over America.  This is about a small group of people who band together to try to take The Master down.
     It is really nice to come to some sort of completion in the conclusion.
     I've watched this off and on for years.

Storyline from Wikipedia: The show centers around Dr. Ephraim Goodweather, the head of the CDC's New York-based Canary Project, who is called upon to investigate an airplane landing wherein everyone aboard is dead. What his team discovers is a viral outbreak that has similarities to an ancient strain of vampirism. The virus begins to spread and Goodweather works with his team and a group of the city's residents to wage a war to save humanity.

25. Bird Box by Josh Malerman

read the book - received from @Kaye - Listsy  #Passport
2014, Ecco
262 pgs.
Adult Dystopia/Horror
Finished 3/17/18
Goodreads rating:3.98 - 49,950 ratings
My rating: 4.5
Setting: Anywhere, USA contemporary (dystopian) times

First line/s: " Malorie stands in the kitchen, thinking.
     Her hands are damp.  She is trembling.  She taps her toe nervously on the cracked tile floor.  It is early; the sun is probably only peeking above the horizon.  She watches its meaager light turn the heavy window drapes of softer shade of black and thinks,
     That was a fog.
     The children sleep under chicken wire draped in black cloth down the hall.  Maybe they heard her moments ago on her knees in the yard.  Whatever noise she made must have traveled through the microphones, then the amplifiers that sat beside their beds."

My comments: This is not a book I would have ordered, or bought, or borrowed.  Its blurbs, reviews, and summaries sound too scary and disconcerting.  But the book was put in my hands and I opened it and read the first short chapter.  I was immediately hooked.  It's sad. It's depressing.  But it's fascinating.  Apparently it's being made into a movie and I can't imagine how that could be done successfully because so much of it takes place in the total absoluteness of darkness, blindfolded or eyes-shut darkness. Yes, it's going to be a scary movie, and yes, I'm going to go see it!

Goodreads synopsis: Something is out there, something terrifying that must not be seen. One glimpse of it, and a person is driven to deadly violence. No one knows what it is or where it came from.
          Five years after it began, a handful of scattered survivors remains, including Malorie and her two young children. Living in an abandoned house near the river, she has dreamed of fleeing to a place where they might be safe. Now that the boy and girl are four, it's time to go, but the journey ahead will be terrifying: twenty miles downriver in a rowboat--blindfolded--with nothing to rely on but her wits and the children’s trained ears. One wrong choice and they will die. Something is following them all the while, but is it man, animal, or monster?
          Interweaving past and present, Bird Box is a snapshot of a world unraveled that will have you racing to the final page.

Dhegdheer, A Scary Somali Folktale - Marian A. Hassan

Illustrated by Betsy Bowen
Minnesota Humanities Commission/ Somali Bilingual Book Project
2007
Rating: 4
Endpapers: dark purple

The illustrations are painted with gouache on black, with dark color covering the entire page. Mmmmmm. They go perfectly with this scary story.

"Once upon a time, a fierce cannibal named Dhegdheer roamed the Hargega Valley in Somalia. Her horrific ways cursed a land once green and lush, turning it into a desert, a crumbling dust. The animals grew thin and the rain went away for a very long time."

A scary "boogeyman" tale with a satisfying ending. Dhegdheer is a female with a daughter - and her daughter is as good as Dhegdheer is evil. Very evil. A cannibal.

Told in the right way, compared to tales from America including urban legends, this story is a great starting point for questions (what is the habitat and location of Somalia?) and discussion. I do, however, wish there was a pronounciation guide!