Vampire Apocalypse Series ‘The Strain’ to Air on FX

According to Deadline Hollywood, FX has picked up “The Strain” a series based upon a trilogy of novels by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan about an outbreak of vampirism in New York City in modern times.

The series, which will be produced by Del Toro and Carlton Cuse, is described thus:

“The Strain is a high-concept thriller that tells the story of Dr. Ephraim Goodweather (Corey Stoll), the head of the Centers for Disease Control Canary Team in New York City. He and his team are called on to investigate a mysterious viral outbreak with hallmarks of an ancient and evil strain of vampirism. As the strain spreads, Eph, his team, and an assembly of everyday New Yorkers wage war for the fate of humanity.”

The books, consisting of “The Strain,” “The Fall,” and “The Night Eternal” seems to be a combination of “The Andromeda Strain,” every zombie apocalypse show ever made, except with vampires, and “Dracula.” In this case instead of arriving in a ghost ship to Victorian England, the master vampire arrives in New York on board a modern jet liner.

The pilot has already been filmed. The role of Professor Abraham Setrakian, apparently the Van Helsing character of the series, has been recast. John Hurt played him in the pilot. The bulk of the scripts have already been written for a series projected to have 39 to 65 episodes for its entire run. “Co-starring on the series are Mia Maestro, Sean Astin, Kevin Durand, Natalie Brown, Jonathan Hyde, Richard Sammel, Robert Maillet, Jack Kesy, Ben Hyland, and Miguel Gomez.”

The series does take vampires, a current favorite subject of genre TV shows and movies, including “True Blood” and “Twilight” and places them into a “Walking Dead” scenario, threatening to overrun the world with the same relentlessness that their undead zombie cousins. The difference is that vampires are strong, intelligent, and especially deadly when thirsty or angry.