Guillermo del Toro: Tried to make them as disgusting as possible

Here on La Plaza we're big fans of the Mexican mastermind behind such fantasty-fueled films as "Hellboy"  and "Pan's Labyrinth": Guillermo del Toro.

Del Toro has recently turned his attention to writing novels -- vampire novels -- and the launch of his first book, called "The Strain," is scheduled for June 6. 

That date suggests that the book was completed before his home country of Mexico was hit by its own special strain -- the H1N1 flu virus that is still bugging the world.

Unsurprisingly, Del Toro and co-writer Chuck Hogan refused to be confined by the traditional vampire genre.

"None of this languid, young men sucking the necks of beautiful people. I love a really chilly story about the undead that makes you realize the otherness, the scary void of an animated corpse that lusts after your blood,'' he explains in this video.

He adds: "I tried to make the vampires as menacing and as real and as absolutely disgusting and alien as possible. I tried to make them into a plague of creatures where you do not recognize the humanity but our own inhumanity in them."

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City