FX removing The Strain billboards after they grossed people out

By Dan Selcke  |  June 30, 2014 | 4:02pm
Aux Features TV

The Strain—the upcoming FX series executive produced by Guillermo del Toro that will once again test America’s ability to absorb additional information about vampires—will debut on July 13. To build anticipation, FX threw up a bunch of billboards featuring a close-up of a worm burrowing its way into a human eyeball—likely a reference to the capillary worms the vampires in The Strain use to turn members of the human race into shambling, undead creatures who drain people of their blood, via the use of retractable, six-foot proboscises located under their tongues.

These billboards quickly left some people upset, with a few taking to Twitter to call for their removal, before they caused some unsuspecting innocent on their morning commute to careen off the road in disgust. Nicholas Stoller, co-writer of The Muppets, expressed his own distaste with a tweet decrying the billboard’s frightening effect on children, in language he probably hopes his own kids will never use.

Because it is nothing if not a network that cares about the children, FX has already pledged to take a few of the billboards down. “We are in the process of replacing the key art for The Strain on outdoor media in several locations,” a spokesman for FX told The Wrap. It’s expected that these new billboards, presumably featuring the words “The Strain” rendered in plain, God-fearing Times New Roman against a white background, will be up before long.

[via TheWrap]

 
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