Re-Imagining Dark Shadows

Some time ago I had submitted some sample pages to Dynamite Entertainment for their ongoing Dark Shadows series.

 

Although the series Dynamite is currently producing picks up where the television series left off, if I would given the opportunity I would want to do a complete re-imagining of the series. Much in the same way the Tim Burton and Johnny Depp created their own version of Dark Shadows.

 

However, when I was creating the pages, my idea was more inspired by both Jonathan Frid's approach to Barnabas Collins earlier on in the series as well as the way he played the character in the House of Dark Shadows movie. More of the cruel and sadistic vampire rather than the more heroic figure he would later become.

 

At least that would be how I would portray Barnabas to begin with.

 

For those of you who are really just getting to know the Dark Shadows series, the thing you need to understand is Barnabas didn't appear in the series till much later on. Most of the earlier series focused on Victoria Winters and her relationship with the Collins family as well as the mysterious Burke Devlin.

 

To be honest, I thought it was a shame Burton didn't use Burke Devlin in the movie. But I suppose for time constraint, I can understand why he didn't. There were a mess of story lines in that series before Barnabas entered the picture.

 

And Barnabas was only meant to be a one-off character. Jonathan Frid took the role because he was trying to get the money to establish himself as a teacher. But the popularity of the character proved to be more lucrative than a career as a teacher. Barnabas became the center of the show and characters like Victoria Winters and Burke Devlin eventually got written out of the show.

 

If I were given the opportunity, I would include those characters but at the same time introduce Barnabas right off the bat...

 

...no pun intended.

 

I think things like Burke Devlin as well as Jason Maguire blackmailing the family is too good to simply omit.

 

How I would do it would be when Victoria enters the picture, Jason is already wormed his way into the family. When Victoria meets him he is already Elizabeth's fiancé. Willie works as the groundskeeper (very much like in House of Dark Shadows) some time before Jason entered the picture. But little does the family know at that time Willie is Jason's partner. He knows of Elizabeth's secret between herself and Jason how Elizabeth killed Jason's husband and initially before Jason came back into the picture, he was a sort of spy for Jason.

 

Although, Burke Devlin has had a rocky past with the Collins family. In particular Elizabeth's brother Roger. He still cares quite a bit for them. He has long suspected Jason's duplicity. He works out an pay off the governess of Roger's son David in order to bring in a new governess. He is well aware the former governess is having an affair with either Willie or Jason (very Curse of Frankenstein I suppose) and having her out of the way brings in the possibility of hiring someone who might unwittingly stumble upon a fresh pair of eyes. Elizabeth puts out an advert looking for a governess which somehow gets sent to Victoria Winters, an orphan who had been working for years at the orphanage she was found at.

 

All this would be condensed into one issue.

 

All this eventually leads to Willie, who has become obsessed with finding a secret Collins family fortune inadvertently freeing Barnabas Collins from his coffin and Barnabas introducing himself to the family to end the first issue.

 

I know it's unfashionable to admit it, but I actually enjoyed the Tim Burton film. Say what you will I liked it. Would I own it on DVD? Probably not. But I didn't feel ripped off when I saw it in the theaters.

 

However, my version of Dark Shadows would be a trifle bit darker than the movie. More along the lines of the House of Dark Shadows. Although, I  would not have Barnabas stay evil. Yes he'd be a total bastard. But I'd want the reader to still feel a sort of sad sympathy for him knowing he would eventually evolve into the tragic hero later on.

 

That's how I would handle a Dark Shadows series if I were given the opportunity.

House of Dark Shadows (1970)

I admit I didn't grow up watching the series. I knew of the series from relatives that grew up watching it. True story but my Aunt Mary used to have nightmares about Quentin Collins. I'm not sure if it was ghost Quentin, werewolf Quentin or his sideburns that made her wake up screaming. But it was a series I knew about growing up.l

And now Syd and I are hopelessly hooking being up to I think DVD Collection Four. We're just about at the point where Dr. Julia Hoffman's experiments to cure Barnabas have gone horribly wrong causing him to look his true age of 200 or so years old.

I was thrilled to hear that they will be FINALLY releasing House of Dark Shadows on DVD along with the second film Night of Dark Shadows on October 30th. I'm kind of wondering if they are doing this because they're also releasing Tim Burton's adaptation of Dark Shadows around the same time.

House of  Dark Shadows was Dan Curtis's first attept at a big screen version of his television series. Originally he had thought about just cobbling together clips from the series to fit a feature-length movie but the idea was quickly abandoned. Instead he opted to do both a retelling and re-imagining of the first appearance of Barnabas Collins.

Although in this movie, Barnabas was more in the traditionally cruel vampire rather than the more heroic light that had been cast upon the character at that point of the television series.

Many of the actors from the series, including Jonathan Frid as Barnabas Collins, are present in the movie. Dan Curtis opted to use Kathryn Leigh Scott's character Maggie Evans in the place of Victoria Winters as the Governess. Which makes sense to me since Maggie Evan's character was originally who Barnbas Collins thought was the reincarnation of his long dead fiance Josette in the series.

There's also a change in the setting as well opting for Lyndhurst Mansion in Tarrytown New York over the Cary Mansion in Newport Rhode Island for Collinwood in that movie. I was kind of surprised with the choice since I thought Carey Mansion had the ideal look for the Collin family's house. But it might have just been one of those things where they just could not get permission to film on the grounds. But I'm not sure of that. But the Gothic Revival style of the house does seem to fit the equally gothic style of the movie.

From the clips I've gotten the chance to watch online, I get the feeling this is the way Dan Curtis would have wanted to the television show to be like. Many of the acting seems greatly improved over the series. But to be fair to the actors involved, the original series was produced at a lightning pace. With episodes being produced and then transmitted Monday through Friday there seemed to be very little time to learn lines or to edit. So it's not very surprising actors were constantly flubbing their lines.

Actually David Henesy who reprises his role as David Collins was the biggest surprise to me from the clips I watched. I don't want to be too cruel to him. I mean he was ten at the time he first took the role of David Collins so considering his age and the type of shooting schedule he had to endure, you're not going to get a Macbeth type of performance. However, he didn't look at the camera as much as the young actress who played Sarah Collins.

But he seems to get a chance to shine in this movie in the role. Especially the scene in which he confronts Caroline at the pool.

Despite the success of the movie and the popularity of the series, the series itself went off the air in 1971. However, there was a second Dark Shadows movie planned but Jonathan Frid chose not to reprise the role of Barnabas Collins wishing to move on to other roles. So, the team opted to go with Quentin Collins and Angelique instead.

I'm looking forward to getting my copy of House of Dark Shadows on DVD. It has a very Hammer Horror feel to it. Hammer must have taken a page out of House of Dark Shadows because a year or so later they would release the first of their modern Dracula films starring Christopher Lee.

But Syd and I are looking forward to getting our hands on the DVD copy and NOT having to spend the ridiculous prices some people are trying to charge for a VHS tape online.

Dr. Julia Hoffman

As my wife Syd and I make our way through the third DVD collection of Dark Shadows we both agree that we hate Dr. Julia Hoffman. I'm sure Grayson Hall who played the part was a very nice and charming lady but ever since she was first introduced to cure Maggie Evans of her trauma inflicted amnesia, we have absolutely hated the character and really wished Barnabas Collins just strangled her to death instead of accepting her offer to cure him of his vampirism.

However, I did find Helena Bonham-Carter's approach at playing her like a drunken mess in the movie to be very amusing.