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Post by Deleted on Dec 5, 2016 16:47:01 GMT -5
Any fans of the 60s supernatural soap opera here? I remember watching it in reruns on a UHF channel when I was little. While Christmas shopping on Amazon, I came across the series on DVD and I ordered one. Each DVD has a couple of months worth of episodes. The storyline I am watching now is about the ghosts of Quentin and Beth as well as Chris Jennings becoming a werewolf. The show is so bad it's good with flubbed lines, pieces of the set falling over, production crew in the shots, as well as over the top melodramatic acting! I read the Dynamite Entertainment comic series a few years ago and it was ok. I am having such a good time rediscovering this show, haha! Much better than the Tim Burton movie that it inspired a couple of years ago. I do have House of Dark Shadows on DVD too--the 1970 film version of the show and it's pretty good!
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Post by brutalis on Dec 5, 2016 17:10:20 GMT -5
There are fond memories of hanging out in Collinswood during my youth. I would come home school and my mom would have it on and i would just miss the 1st minutes and/or opening and sit and watch it with her. It was grand fun in the silliest way trying to turn a daily soap opera into a gothic/horror series with no budget. It was all about the acting. Barnabas was the best part of the entire series.
There were 3-4 DVD sets released kind of like a "best of" when the Burton movie was coming out. And occasionally Decades television will run a "binge" weekend of episodes. This is one series that plays well in black and white (as it originated) and watched late at night when you are tired and weary. Then the brain is ,ore readily open to the experience of viewing the hokeyness of it all. But turn off the brain and enjoy it the same way many do for early Doctor Who and it becomes a guilty pleasure.
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Post by Rob Allen on Dec 5, 2016 17:31:13 GMT -5
My mother and brother started watching it at some point in the late 60s; they got me hooked on it during the time-travel-to-1795 story, and I was a devoted watcher for the next few years. I think we had a Dark Shadows board game.
Was Barnabas the first heroic, or at least sympathetic, vampire?
I even remember most of the lyrics to "Quentin's Theme":
Shadows of the night...
Falling silently
Echo of the past...
Calling you to me
Haunting memory...
Veiled in misty glow
Phantom melody...
Playing soft and low
In this world that we know now
Life is here, then gone
But somewhere in the afterglow
Love lives on and on
Dreams of long ago...
Meet in rendezvous
Shadows of the night...
Calling me to you
Calling me to you
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Post by Cei-U! on Dec 5, 2016 20:10:41 GMT -5
I watched it faithfully as a kid (had no choice, as Mom liked it and she ruled the TV with an iron fist) and even had the Barnabas Collins model kit. I recently acquired scans of the long-running Gold Key comic but haven't had a chance to look at them (and probably won't for a while).
Cei-U!
I summon a bottle of Testors' matte black!
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Post by berkley on Dec 5, 2016 21:08:23 GMT -5
We never got the original show on our tv channels where I grew up, but I really liked the short-lived revival that came out in the early 1990s. It started out great but then became bogged down in a long, multi-episode historical flshback, which killed the momentum of the contemporary story they interrupted just as it was getting going.
I did read a few of the comics back in the late 60s or early 70s and look forward to watching the original show one of these days. Thank you, Internet!
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,870
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Post by shaxper on Dec 5, 2016 21:26:58 GMT -5
Funny you should mention this!
When it first came to DVD years ago, my wife and I gave it a try and got seriously hooked. Around the point where Victoria got sent back in time and Barnabus first turned into a vampire, we had our first child and sort of lost track of the series after that.
Now that I'm newly separated and have all this time on my hands, I've begun watching again. Just got up to the point where Josette becomes a vampire, and I know what's coming next.
I'm too young to have watched these when they first hit the air, but I absolutely adore them today, in spite of (or perhaps because of) the rawness. Man, does Grayson Hall EVER remember her lines???
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Post by codystarbuck on Dec 6, 2016 3:12:49 GMT -5
Scared the pee-pee out of me when I was a little kid and had come from school and turned on the tv. There was Barnabas baring his fangs.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 6, 2016 9:06:25 GMT -5
The storyline I am currently watching has Barnabas as good. Julia has cured him of being a vampire. They are trying to help Chris with his wolfman problem. Currently they are hiding him in the mausoleum during the full moon.
Yes, Shadows of the Night!! That is the music the children hear when Quintin wants them to do something! Right now it is just music coming through an old gramophone, but I can remember from when I watched DS the first time, hearing Quintin recite the words.
Grayson Hall is something else! Especially when she screams her head off, gasps, and then stares into the camera (probably panicked as she can't remember her lines!)
Great memories everyone!
I remember watching the 90s revival and I enjoyed it. Wish it could have stayed on another season to see what they would have done. I recall reading they wanted to do the Quentin story. Ben Cross made a good Barnabas.
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Post by brutalis on Dec 6, 2016 9:56:02 GMT -5
Next to Dracula, Barnabas Collins was the coolest vampire around town. He wasn't a mad blood driven beast of the night slaying indiscriminately. He was a suave, cultured, dark, driven and sophisticated man about town (albeit at night only, which nobody seemed to notice?) and the ladies were attracted to him.
Barnabas was also a very stylish gentleman with his attire and ring and silver wolfs head cane.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 6, 2016 10:17:09 GMT -5
That is one thing DS seemed consistent in--being stylish and fashionable. In the flashback stories, they seemed to really want to get the costumes right and the hairstyles.
Barnabas was always dapper looking as Brutalis stated. I liked the coat he wore.
Carolyn was always trendy and cute. Liz looked classy. Roger looked very sophisticated--and unapproachable, haha!
DS had some very attractive ladies too....Carolyn, Angelique, Beth, Daphne, Maggie, Victoria, Elizabeth. it's fun to watch the show, especially the stories that were set in the present and see how people dressed.
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Post by The Captain on Dec 6, 2016 11:36:13 GMT -5
I've seen a couple dozen episodes of DS and liked it well enough, although probably not enough to pick it up on DVD. It seemed like a cool concept that made due on a shoestring budget, which led to many of the issues that people have mentioned above.
I remember the attempted revival of the show in the late 80s, on NBC IIRC. I caught most of those episodes before it got cancelled.
I've seen about 10 minutes of the Tim Burton, which was just enough to inform me that I didn't have any desire to see the rest of the running time.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 13, 2018 14:20:45 GMT -5
I am now on the final story line of Dark Shadows...1841 parallel time. It's not very good and not very Dark Shadows. Jonathan Frid isn't Barnabas, but his parallel time counterpart, Bramwell. No vampires, witches, or werewolves.. just creepy goings on at Collinwood involving a lottery where a family member must spend the night in a cursed room. They either die in the room or emerge insane.
Just finished the 1840 story where Barnabas, Julia, and Professor Stokes go back in time to solve the mystery of Gerard Stiles, Daphne, and the destruction of Collinwood in 1995. Very fun to see Kate Jackson in her first television role!
Also watching DS during lunch on Amazon Prime. The stories I am watching at lunch are really good....Barnabas has just been introduced and he is terrorizing Maggie into becoming Josette. Elizabeth has a big story too...being blackmailed into marrying swindler Jason McQuire. He knows Liz killed her husband and he helped bury him. He is holding this over Liz so she will marry him and give him access to the Collins fortune. Fun stuff!
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Post by Deleted on Mar 13, 2018 14:34:06 GMT -5
Sorry to say this, I'm not a fan of Dark Shadows at all ... I just had a hard time enjoying it because it's has that Soap Opera feel and when you mix Soap Opera and Supernatural ... it's like trying to mix oil and water together. I tried to enjoy it but with some reasons ... I just can't.
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Post by berkley on Mar 14, 2018 16:34:44 GMT -5
Speaking of the soap opera + supernatural mix, what about that "Passions" show - anyone seen that? I had the impression it was more soap than supernatural so never got around to having a look at it but I probably should have because you never know.
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Post by brutalis on Mar 14, 2018 16:48:15 GMT -5
Back when they Burton/Depp Darck Shadows movie came out they put several "best of" DVD's and i picked those up when they hit the markdown shelves. So i have 3 or 4 DVD's I can watch when the Shadow fever hits. Also Decades the HD TV station usually will run a weekend binge of the series a couple of times during the year starting in the black/white episodes and running into the color episodes.
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