New Vampire Horror Series will try to Thrill TV Viewers on FX Cable Network

THE STRAIN has gone full circle now.  Originally created as an outline for a television series pitch by filmmaker Guillermo del Toro when no networks picked it up for a pilot the idea was transformed into a trilogy of New York Times Best Seller books and a comic book series.  Now the cable network FX has picked up THE STRAIN for a 3 season run with the first episode airing on Sunday July 13th at 10pm ET/PT.

The first episode of the show starts with a plane landing at JFK airport than going dark and silent.  When it is boarded, all of the passengers are found dead and the Center for Disease Control is brought in to investigate as authorities fear this tragedy was caused by a viral outbreak on board the flight.  The CDC sends their top investigator Ephraim Goodweather (played by Corey Stoll - Congressman Peter Russo in the first season of Netflix's House of Cards drama) to find out what is going on.  Goodweather is stumped as it appears the cause of the trouble appears to originate from a mysterious giant coffin filled with soil and worms found in the plane's cargo hold.  The infection quickly jumps from the plane to the airport to New York City.  Turns out though it isn't a virus but rather a vampire infestation that is the cause of this plague.

Season one's 13 episodes of THE STRAIN will be based on the first novel and tells the story of the eight days in which the outbreak first surfaces and infects New York City.  The main characters are similar to the ones from the novels and comic books, the CDC expert, an elderly pawn shop owner who encountered the vampires as a child in World War II era Europe, and a pest exterminator who encounters this new vampire infestation while on the job.  The show throws in a computer hacker character not from the books and comics to slightly differentiate the show's scripts from the prose. These four characters team together to tackle the Master, one of seven ancient vampires, who is responsible for bringing the strain to New York City.  What is the Master's grand plan and how does a rich industrialist lurking in the shadows play into it?

Watch THE STRAIN on FX to find out!

Oh, one other note to mention!  These vampires aren't the ones of Buffy the Vampire, Dracula, True Blood, The Twilight Saga that look like normal humans who need to avoid the sun, rather they are more like the Reapers from the movie Blade II (directed by del Toro) that have three-way jaws with leach like suckers that shoot out of their faces and bodies that are grotesque.  Like The Walking Dead this is not a show you want to allow children to watch!

THE STRAIN INFECTS FX IN JULY

A few years before Guillermo del Toro directed the recent summer SciFi blockbuster PACIFIC RIM, he co-wrote with Chuck Hogan a vampire horror novel titled  THE STRAIN which reached the NEW YORK TIMES Bestseller List in 2009.  Dark Horse comics adapted the novel to a comic book series in 2011 and now the story is coming to the small screen with the cable channel FX (home to American Horror Story, The Americans & Sons of Anarchy ) airing a television show based on del Toro's novel starting in July 2014.

Picture a stormy night at JFK airport with the wind whipping and lighting crashing.  A plane routinely lands but than just stops dead on the tarmac.  All the shades on its windows are drawn down, the lights are off, and no one is answering its radio.  In addition, to SWAT and counter-terrorism units being brought in to address the situation, a crack team from the CDC (Center for Disease Control) is called in to help ascertain the situation.  This is how THE STRAIN begins.

The plane is the beginning of a vampire infestation of New York City.  These aren't the glamorized vampires of Dracula lore though but rather grotesque mutated monsters that really put the "horror" into the vampire myth.  If you've seen the mutated vampires in the movie BLADE 2, which del Toro also happened to direct, you get the picture.  If not check out the great artwork in Dark Horse's STRAIN comic books for some great visuals.  The book and TV show will revolve around how the CDC tackles this vampire epidemic.

Unlike Dracula and other vampire stories that provide a mystical element for the origin and creation of these creatures of the night, THE STRAIN takes a scientific approach to explaining them.  The vampires are infected by parasitic worms that carry a virus that is passed on to humans causing them to mutate.  The worms are introduces to a person's body through a vampire's feeding or through it entering on its own in an invasive manner through a wound or orifice.  The worms feed off of blood and as they do that they transmit an incurable vampire virus transforming the victim.

 
These vampires develop "stingers" that shoot out of their mouths to lach onto their human prey and suck out their blood.  If the vampire doesn't kill their prey through feeding on them than the person is infected by worms that make their way into their body during the feeding infecting them with the virus and turning them into vampires too.  The vampires in the strain also lose their hair and fingernails, while gaining sharp talons and a hard skin covering for protection.  Not the most glamorous of characters are they but pretty creepy.

If you enjoy THE WALKING DEAD, you will probably enjoy THE STRAIN.  Here's a teaser trailer from FX for this new show:

For more information, about FX'S THE STRAIN visit:  http://www.fxnetworks.com/thestrain