( CNN ) -- Tender , loving vampires ? Look elsewhere than FX 's `` The Strain . '' The new thriller series , produced by Guillermo del Toro , Carlton Cuse and author Chuck Hogan , wants to make bloodsuckers scary again . `` The vampire genre has sort of been overrun by romance , '' Cuse told reporters on a press call . `` We had had our fill of vampires that we 're feeling sorry for because they had romantic problems . '' Instead , `` The Strain 's '' vampires lose their heart , their hair and their genital organs . When these vampires fully transition , there 's no mistaking them for the really pale guy in science class . For Cuse , that was the selling point for hopping aboard . `` The idea of sort of reimagining the vampires , going back to the roots of what vampires are -- that they are scary , dangerous creatures -- that was something that was incredibly compelling for me ; the idea that when you see these things , it 's not good . '' An adaptation of Hogan and del Toro 's books , `` The Strain , '' premiering Sunday , July 13 , begins with the mysterious deaths of passengers aboard an airplane that lands in New York . All but a few on the flight appear to be dead , and CDC epidemiologist Dr. Ephraim Goodweather ( Corey Stoll ) heads over to investigate with a few colleagues . But the wormy outbreak they 're examining is far more ancient and sinister then they realize -- and it is n't long before the horrific outbreak spreads . `` I 've been obsessed by vampires for a long , long time , since I was a very young kid , and a very strange kid , '' del Toro said during the press call . `` I read about vampire mythology worldwide and I familiarized myself with the Japanese , Filipino , Malaysian and Eastern European variations on the vampire , and many , many others . And I kept very detailed notes as a kid on where to go with the vampire myth in terms of brutality , social structure ( and ) biology . Some of those notes made it into my first feature , 'Cronos . ' Some of them made it in 'Blade II ' when I directed that , and most of them made it into 'The Strain . ' '' In del Toro 's world , the undead do not sparkle , do not brood and do not hesitate to take out someone they once loved . In fact , the first thing to go is their heart . `` The older that they stay alive , the more they lose their humanity , '' del Toro explained . `` They start literally by losing their heart ; their heart is suffocated by a vampire heart that overtakes the functions . This was important metaphorically for me because the beacon that guides these vampires to their victims is love . Love is what makes them seek their victims . They go to the people they love the most . So they turn their instinct that is most innately human into the most inhuman feeding mechanism . '' With `` The Strain '' being on FX , hardcore horror fans are likely skeptical that the drama can be as graphic as an R-rated movie would be . Cuse told press that the network gave the producers `` the latitude '' to tell the story their way -- and critics have taken notice . `` 'The Strain ' is packed with so much macabre imagery and so many clever ideas that it does n't feel like the resuscitation of a tired genre , but the launch of something new and fun , '' says HitFix 's Alan Sepinwall . Granted , like the show 's gross-out billboards , the producers ' commitment to `` unadulterated '' storytelling may not sit well with some viewers . `` This is cult-classic , midnight-movie horror , designed in meticulous , mythology-respecting detail for comic-book readers and fangirls and -boys , '' says Entertainment Weekly . `` The show is n't for everyone . But that special someone it is for ? She 's gon na love it . ''
FX 's new series ` ` The Strain '' is a return to scary vampires . Series is produced by Guillermo del Toro , Carlton Cuse and Chuck Hogan . ''