Vampires Don't Sparkle...they cast Dark Shadows

Fairys sparkle.  That's why they are the Ancient and Shining Ones, the Good Folk of the Mound and so on and so forth.  Vampires are creatures of darkness and soul-chilling sorrow who drain the very life from a person's marrow before they even start to sink their teeth into a victim's neck.  Or at least they used to, back before they got trivialized by illiterates and ... oh forget it.  There's no point to doing any sort of a rant like that.  Besides, there's no need.  Stephanie Myers didn't drive a stake into anyone's heart, least of all romantically troubled vampires wrestling with their consciences while they dilly-dally around with their food like lonely shepherds on dark, dark nights down in the holler up in the hills.  She didn't even do it half as well as Dan Curtis did back in 1968 with Dark Shadows--the world's first Gothic Soap Opera.  And no, that's not gothic as in rubber pants, overdone black eyeliner and striking a suitably Byronic pose with a glass of absinthe whilst discussing the merits of suicide as practised amongst obscure French occultists.  That's Gothic as in the sort of tragic and moody romances with eery atmosphere and weirdly subversive supernatural elements that Lovecraft grew up reading like the Castle of Otranto, Melmoth the Wanderer, The Monk, and the rest of those classic tales that you can mostly find over at Project Gutenberg's Gothic Fiction Bookshelf. For free. And spare me the angsty melodrama of the hip newTrue Blood stuff--that sly old devil of a Yankee gentleman with a penchant for exsanguination, Barnabas Collins, was dating a waitress and having ethical qualms that tormented his black, black soul back before the Seventies even got started.  And he did it very, very well, thank you.  And on a day-time Soap of all things.

And now Barnabas is having the last laugh.  Johnny Depp has been cast to reprise Jonathan Frid's iconic role in a new production of a big screen adaptation of Dark Shadows helmed by Tim Burton.  Barnabas might get a little weirder, but he certainly won't get frikkin' sparkly, either.

What's not to like about a dyed in the wool Gothic Soap Opera that made use of plots, tropes and ideas from Edgar Allen Poe, Shirley Jackson, Guy Endore, Nathanial Hawthorne, Oscar Wilde, Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, Henry James, M. R. James, H. P. Lovecraft and other unnameable authors of supernatural/gothic/occult horror fiction?  Maybe, if the movie adaptation (Third Big Screen remake) does significantly well, there will be another attempt made at a new and hippified Dark Shadows TV series (version 3.5!). 


Episode One of the Original Dark Shadows Series

Watch Dark Shadows: Episode 1. in Entertainment  

  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com
 
OR
 

 
Some Dark Shadows Links

• The Obligatory Wikipedia entry for Dark Shadows
• Dark Shadows Journal at Collinwood (dot) net
• Dark Shadows Online
• Dark Shadows News blog  (they've been keeping an eye on the DS-Remake)
• The Dark Shadows Festival--a Convention for Dark Shadows Fans
• The Dark Shadows Festival site also has some very cheesy DS Greeting Cards available
• Some interesting Dark Shadows books are available at Pomegranate Press
• Dark Shadows audiodramas available at Big Finish *
• Dark Shadows at TV.com--if you're interested in a cast list, other people's opinions, etc.
• There's a site that flogs DVDs of the original DS episodes
• A bunch of DS merchandise is available at MPI's site--including a Barnabas Collins bobblehead
• There is a site devoted to the Two Movies that were already done decades ago
• House of Dark Shadows
• Watch House of Dark Shadows as introduced by Elvira
• Night of Dark Shadows
• Dark Shadows Collectibles including the Gold Key Comics Dark Shadows series
• A nice bit of detail on the NBS revival of Dark Shadows from 1991
• Craig Hamrick's very nice DS site, including his DS Collectibles books
• Dark Shadows (dot)com which was solid black emptiness last time I checked, but that won't persist with the new movie on the way...so something is bound to slither into that space eventually
• Watch more episodes of the Original Dark Shadows series at Veoh
• Watch Original DS episodes at Youtube
• Or watch the Revived Dark Shadows series at Hulu
• Such as the 1991 Pilot Episode
• Or the pilot for the 2004 second attempt at a remake of DS for TV by the WB (the .5 in DS 3.5...)
• An innocent seeming DS page
• A Dark Shadows Yahoo Group
• Build your own Barnabas model kit
• I used to have one of the Barnabas Collins Vampire Van model kits as a kid--wish I still did, as the things go for $175 or more (for the original model kit), the new re-issue is much more affordable
• and Elvira's Movie Macabre, because Elvira said so.  Yes Elvira.

Vrooooooom Vroooooooom --gak--

Now if only there was a Dark Shadows RPG...though I did find an attempt at developing an online acting-exercise type RPG for Dark Shadows that appears to be all over the social media sites and quite active.  This online Dark Shadows RPG looks like a cross between White Wolf LARPers and gothic/Victoriana enthusiasts, so if that's your particular cup of tea, then by all means check them out.

I was hoping to find a Dark Shadows supplement for the Call of Cthulhu RPG, or something more along those lines, but so far, no such luck.

I'm heading over to YouTube/Vimeo/Hulu now, I'm looking for this particular episode, as quoted from Wikipedia: "The Leviathans: episode 885 (November 14, 1969) to 980 (March 27, 1970) An ancient Lovecraftian race of beings coerce Barnabas into joining their ranks. Together they attempt to enslave the Collins family and bring the town under the thrall of their mysterious leader, Jeb Hawkes."  Wish me luck.



* A Quick Lovecraftian-esque Excerpt from the Big Finish site:

"Dark Shadows--Collinsport, an isolated fishing village on the Maine coast. At its centre, lies the ominous Collinwood mansion, home of the wealthy Collins family. Those who dare to live at Collinwood find themselves the victims of ghosts, witchcraft and the supernatural, as they fight the spectre of vampirism that curses the Collins family name across the centuries."
All new, full-cast audio dramas and talking-books on CD, based on the classic gothic drama serial. Starring original Dark Shadows cast members, David Selby, Lara Parker, John Karlen and Kathryn Leigh Scott.