The Passage

Reviewed by Sam Alton - Movie Nerd

Combing through book and movie reviews in Time, Newsweek and the NY Times, I kept hearing about The Passage.  Finally, one of my movie nerd friends with similar tastes recommended the book whole-heartedly, comparing it to the mighty Stephen King opus, The Stand.  It's a bold comparison and I’d had enough.  I purchased The Passage with high expectations and the thrilling almost 800 page story does not disappoint.  Granted, I am a sucker for apocalyptic-government meddling-end of the world virus-good vs. evil-vampire-redemption material but it’s all in the delivery.  Is it intense? Is it hard to put down? Is there a tinge of realism to an otherwise unbelievable story?  Are the vampires what you would expect them to be, i.e., ferocious, hungry, hard to kill and maintaining a tinge of the human soul allowing them to remember (or forget?) the beings they once were?  The answers to all of these question is unequivocally- YES.  I am a busy man with three little kid, but once I picked the book up, I finished it within a week and half.  I cannot quite endorse all the comparisons to The Stand- in my mind that book remains atop the mountain as THE epic battle between good and evil- but The Passage is a great book and wonderful summer read.