Friday, May 11, 2012

MC: Dark Shadows

As a kid, I was terrified by Barnabas Collins.  He was the vampire in the TV show Dark Shadows.

Dark Shadows is an American gothic soap opera that aired weekdays on the ABC television network, from June 27, 1966, to April 2, 1971. The story bible does not mention any supernatural elements. It was unprecedented in daytime television when ghosts were introduced about six months after it began.

The series became hugely popular when vampire Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid) appeared a year into its run. Dark Shadows also featured werewolves, zombies, man-made monsters, witches, warlocks, time travel, and a parallel universe. A small company of actors each played many roles.

Now, Hollywood has taken the story and made a motion picture.  There's plenty of marketing hype including several midnight showings.

I attended one close to my home THIS morning. <Yawn>

In the year 1752, Joshua and Naomi Collins, with young son Barnabas, set sail from Liverpool, England to start a new life in America. But even an ocean was not enough to escape the mysterious curse that has plagued their family. Two decades pass and Barnabas (played by Johnny Depp) has the world at his feet-or at least the town of Collinsport, Maine.

The master of Collinwood Manor, Barnabas is rich, powerful and an inveterate playboy...until he makes the grave mistake of breaking the heart of Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green). A witch, in every sense of the word, Angelique dooms him to a fate worse than death: turning him into a vampire, and then burying him alive. Two centuries later, Barnabas is inadvertently freed from his tomb and emerges into the very changed world of 1972. He returns to Collinwood Manor to find that his once-grand estate has fallen into ruin. The dysfunctional remnants of the Collins family have fared little better.

A period move to the early seventies, made the show a bit campy, but then, I think Dark Shadows was the original camp-show of its time.

THREE & A HALF POPCORN BUCKETS (0 to 5 Rating)
Screened on Thursday, May 10, 2012 at Bad Axe Theater, Bad Axe, MI

Check out all the blog entries at BareNakedBill.blogspot.com

No comments:

Post a Comment