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By Jacqueline Cutler © Zap2it

It took the dark genius of Edgar Allan Poe and the television savvy of Kevin Williamson to lure Kevin Bacon to star in a series.

“The Following,” premiering on Fox Monday, Jan. 21, is a scary thriller. Under no circumstances is this for children or anyone distressed by gore. Incredibly well done, the deeply disturbing story haunts viewers long after watching.

From the opening scenes, it’s shocking. Someone kills several corrections officers in a maximum security prison. On the lam, the serial killer is off to finish whatever he left undone.

Only one man understands the killer’s psychotic mind enough to nab him. And that man is ex-FBI agent Ryan Hardy (Bacon), who initially arrested him.

Bacon hasn’t done episodic TV since his days in “Guiding Light” 30 years ago.

“Three or four years ago I reluctantly said I wanted to do a series,” he says at a cocktail party in a SoHo hotel. “When I started out, that was where you went to die.”

He recalls reading scripts and thought this dark series was for cable.

“He’s not the sort of character you read it and know who he is automatically,” Bacon says.

The 15-episode series pits good against evil, but Hardy is not entirely good. Like any great character, he is flawed. He has a drinking problem — when you’re pouring vodka into a water bottle, you definitely have a problem. And when he was on the job, he slept with the serial killer’s wife, Claire (Natalie Zea, “Justified”). However, they weren’t lovers until the killer was imprisoned. Still, the FBI frowns on such behavior.