Dream projects: Dark Shadows

I have mentioned on my blog having the desire to do an issue or two of Dynamite Entertainment's DARK SHADOWS series. But I also have a dream of doing a proper television revival of the series DARK SHADOWS. 

I am well aware how the recent film version(which I admit I like) has probably soured many people in doing anything further with the program. But that has not deterred me.

On a recent day trip to Rockport Massachusetts, I thought to myself how it would make a great location shot for the fictional town of Collinsport.

The feel of the streets and the buildings just had the feel of Collinsport for me.

Also, my choice for the role of 200 year old vampire Barnabas Collins would be British born actor Paul McGann.

I think the casting would be ideal since Paul was born in Liverpool. The city which Barnabas is said to have been from.

If anything else, to hear him make this speech. Which I think is one of Jonathan Frid's best in the series.

I also would want someone like Kathryn Leigh Scott, Nancy Barrett or Lara Parker as Elizabeth Stoddard-Collins. Just to have that connection with the old series.

I'd also like to bring back the Carey Mansion as Collinwood again.

If it's unavailable, I'd also want to use Lyndhurst Mansion in Tarrytown New York which was the basis for Collinwood in HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS.

I think my biggest problem with the Dark Shadows movie is that it kind of missed a great number of the great characters and story-lines from the show. A lot of that I'm sure due to time restraint.

Also, there was a helluva lot of plot twists and story-lines even before Jonathan Frid joined the cast. Many of them too good to simply just forgot. I feel as though I would try my best to incorporate them all into a new series as well as re-introduce characters like Burke Devlin, Jason MacGuire, Nicolas Blair and Professor Stokes.

I would probably also introduce characters such as Barnabas, Angelique and Quentin a lot quicker than in the series since all of them were introduced over time. With Quentin and Angelique it would be over the course of the first series.

I wouldn't do  the series for laughs. But at the same time, I wouldn't try to make it super dark. The one thing I've learned from Doctor Who's return in 2005 is try and maintain something that made the series popular with the fans. With Doctor Who, it's that level of camp that people enjoyed in the classic series. Despite the silly monsters and dodgy sets, it was always about the cleverness of the writing.

And the same goes for Dark Shadows.

Lara Parker, who has done so much at keeping the series alive with her books would be someone I would immediately contact to write episodes. It only seems right since she has written so much original fiction.

I know so many great writers who I  know to be fans of the show that I would also contact for a potential series.

But Dark Shadows is definitely high up on my list of pet projects I'd love to get my fangs into.

Special Mid-Summer Auction: WELCOME TO COLLINWOOD 16X20 Color Art Print SIGNED!!

A special Mid-Summer's Night Dream type auction. Bid on a 16x20 art print of WELCOME TO COLLINWOOD!!

Inspired by the cult classic television soap opera DARK SHADOWS. This particular image was inspired by the cast photo taken in the mid 1960's. I added a few other characters not part of the cast at the time or just not available such as Quentin, Angelique, Professor Stokes and Burke Devin. The image itself will measure 16x20 and be printed on high quality glossy cardstock. Shipping on this auction, much like many of the auctions taking place this Summer is free!! This will be the only time I will be printing this illustration at this size and in these particular sepia tones.  I will be only making one 16x20 print of this image.The winning bidder of this auction will have the print SIGNED PERSONALLY to them and dated. Once the winning bid is met, a print will be made and the original 16x20 image of the print will be deleted. Making this a one of a kind print. Click on the link below and Happy Bidding:

Dark Shadows: Welcome to Collinwood Art Auction

New auction!! Dark Shadows: Barnabas and Angelique (11x17 Color Print +ORIGINAL ARTWORK!!)

Original artwork by Bret M. Herholz (Diary of the Black Widow/Sherlock Holmes). Illustrated in Deleter Black Ink with Crow Quill Pen on Canson 9x12 Bristol Board. Colors on print added digitally. Print measures 11x17.

SPECIAL ONE TIME PRINT AUCTION!!

Inspired by the cult hit Dark Shadows featuring the characters Barnabas Collins and Angelique as portrayed by Jonathan Frid and Lara Parker.

Colors were inspired by the restored version of THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI.

The way this auction works is once a winning bid has been made, a print of the image will be made on a high quality glossy cardstock and signed personally to the winning bidder and dated. The original digital file of the image will be deleted making this print ONE OF A KIND. But, along with the print, you will also be bidding on the original artwork I used of Barnabas and Angelique. Which will also be signed to the winning bidder and dated.

Suitable for framing and the ideal gift for any Dark Shadows fan. Click on the link below and happy bidding:

E-Bay Auction: Dark-Shadows Barnabas and Angelique (11x17 Color Print ORIGINAL ARTWORK)

Thoughts on House of Dark Shadows

 

House of Dark Shadows (1970) has all the makings of a really bad film. Bad sound. Bad editing. Repetitive dialogue. And plot holes you could drive a red double-decker bus through.

 

But the fact of the matter is, it's a great film!!

 

Sometimes technical deficiencies can ruin a film. But it's just not the case with this film. I found it enjoyable in a very Hammer Horror sort of way. Ironically Hammer would transplant Dracula in the 1970's a year after House of Dark Shadows was released.

Most of the regular cast from the series are present in the film. Jonathan Frid, Joan Bennett and Louis Edmonds acting are given a chance to shine in this film. Which they really are not given the chance to do with the break-neck schedule of the television series.

So, there's very little wooden acting and flubbing of lines in the film.

For me the stand-out performance was Nancy Barrett as Caroline Stoddard. In particular the scene where they are driving a wooden stake through her heart after she had become a vampire.

I actually think she was more terrifying than Jonathan Frid as a vampire.

In all, the film is a lot of fun to watch. It retains all the fun and camp of the television series while adding a dimension of horrific gore.

Just be warned. Some of the sound quality of the film is a bit dodgy. You may want to watch it with the closed captioning on.

But with that said I highly recommend you rent it! You shan't be disappointed.

 



Kind words from the Collinsport Historical Society

The Collinsport Historical Society had some very kind things to say about say about some pages I did as a submission to Dynamite Entertainment for their ongoing Dark Shadows comic book series. You can read their blog here:

 

The Collinsport Historical Society

 

As I've stated in the past, I'd jump at the chance of doing an issue or twelve or a one-shot graphic novel of Dark Shadows for them ;-)

 



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.

Dark Shadows Proposal for Dynamite

I just completed a few Dark Shadows sample pages for a submissions I'm preparing to send out to Dynamite Entertaiment.

Dynamite has a really great roster of titles and the cult classic gothic soap Dark Shadows is one of them. Although I am aware Dynamite's portrayal of Barnabas Collins is his much later incarnation which he is cured of his vampirism I'm just more fascinated by the dynamics of his earlier Dracula/Renfield redux relationship between himself and Willie Loomis.

And being a fan of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, I decided to render the pages in sepia tones.

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