Rating: 
Summary: SINK YOUR TEETH INTO THIS CULT CLASSIC
Review: There are grand operas, horse operas and soap operas. But we're not horsing around when we say that there's only one grand, gothic soap opera --- the indestructible "Dark Shadows."
Premiering on ABC in 1966, it ran for five years, chalking up 1,225 episodes. And now it's time, once again, to sink our teeth into one of TV's more quixotic offerings. Pass the garlic, please.
And pass the DVD sets issued by MPI Home Video, dedicated folk who have worked tirelessly to bring the series out of its forgotten shadows and into an era of rediscovery. Each of the sets contain 4 discs, a chronicle of "Dark Shadows" episodes --- approximately 75 hours of our favorite fanged ghoul, Barnabas Collins, and the dark doings set in the small fictional fishing village of Collinsport, Maine. Be forewarned, however, that as much as we have a stake in the revival of the series, we question why MPI only included episodes #211 to
#412. (We asked the question, but they never answered. Talk about being kept in dark shadows.)
The late '60s were an odd time in our cultural history, a kind of a maturation into reality after the bland '50s and a precursor for the entitlement and permissiveness of the '70s. Violence permeated our society and its entertainment ... and escape was the order of the day. Dark Shadows brought us
to a strange set of performers playing even a stranger set of characters. Grayson Hall and Joan Bennett came from the movies, Jonathan Frid and David Selby came from the stage, and they were supported by actors and actresses who had spent literally decades gracing some of the most popular soap operas from radio and television.
Adding to the escapism was the time element. You were never quite sure what century you were in while visiting the New England branch of Transylvania. It could be modern-day Collinsport, or it could be the late 18th century. Performers could be playing the present-day characters, or their great
grandparents. Still, one thing was sure: High on Windows Hill stood the family manse, Collinswood (the name most likely came from Wilkie Collins, the author whose gothic gems graced book stalls in late Victorian times), and, regardless of the century, it was here that the haunted Collinses plied their depraved trade.
"Dark Shadows" had a narrative link in a way, but the performers never seem to know exactly where they are, were they've been, or, most importantly,where they were going. To be sure, there were the normal and accepted gaffs of daytime television, such as a boom mike boinking a performer on the head or people tripping over cables. But, there was the added zest of poor Joan Bennett looking confused, calling performers by their real names, and trying to cover rising panic with a look of sheer exotic boredom. Bennett made her first film well before the talky revolution, but she hadn't seen or heard everything yet, until she sojourned into daytime television.
As a matter of fact, the growth and development of the television show parallels to a greater or lesser extent the growth and development of theater of the absurd in America. The players and the set remained basically the same, but the period and action varied wildly. And, ultimately it didn't matter where you were, or where you thought you were, or where you thought you were going, because you were under the spell of the Collinses, in Collinsport, and they were in control. If the reality seemed fractured, hallucinatory and vaguely scary, well,
then, wasn't life exactly like that?
Dan Curtis, who also brought us "War and Remembrance," "The Winds of War," "The Night Stalker," "Dracula" and "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (both with Jack Palance) and the cult film "Burnt Offerings," spawned the series. But the greatest
success of this veritable one-man cottage industry is undoubtedly "Dark Shadows." The brooding gothic setting, the sprawling, elephantine plot twists and the idiosyncratic, not to say colliding, acting styles come together to create something unique and strangely satisfying.
For the last 20 years, there has been an annual Dark Shadows Festival, held either in the Los Angeles or New York area. This year, it will be held in Brooklyn at the end of August. An ominous press release informs us that this
year marks the final full fledged festival, the last of its line.
Knowing the denizens of Dark Shadows, we don't believe it for a moment!
Rating:
Summary: Finally
Review: My first memory of Dark Shadows was staying up late to catch reruns on a local TV channel when I was younger.From the early B/W episodes(the creepier feeling ones) to the later color ones I couldn't stop watching .Even though most of the stories are right out of the classic horror/thriller novels that never bothered me .It was the quick pacing of the stories and tragic fate of the characters that I liked most.Yopu knew that bad thing were in store for the family but they were most of the time powerless to stop it.No storyline was endlessly drawn out to where you would lose interest in it. Now the powers that be have decided to release the series on DVD. I'm a little dissapointed that it doesn't start at the very beginning with Jossette's ghost and the Phoenix ,but when they did the VHS tapes they started with the Resurrection of Barnabas also .I hope that the DVD run of the series will go to the very end with the story of 1841 PT with the final voice-over telling the fate of the Collins family .I will look forward to each new wave of Dark Shadows DVD like I used too for each new episode late night on TV.
Rating: 
Summary: Less Episodes per DVD would have been better
Review: A big thanks to MPI Home Video for releasing Dark Shadows on the DVD format. But I think the picture quality would have been even better if MPI would have put less episodes per DVD. The picture quality is good since these episodes were video taped 35 years ago. I highly recommned these DVD Box Sets to any fan of Dark Shadows.
Rating:
Summary: Gothic horror and daytime television meet DVD FINALLY!!!!
Review: Finally Dark Shadows hits a format we can collect and preserve. This first contains the equivalent of the first 8 tapes MPI released in 1989 (40 episodes, 4 discs) so we are likely to see approximately 30 more sets like this before we are done, but well worth the wait. Like the VHS tapes we are starting with the beginning of Barnabas, but there is a preamble to the early shows we can enjoy til those episodes start coming out after my guesstimate set 25 (they were originally released on VHS after the rest of the series). In this 1st set Willy Loomis (John Karlen) (who had been recently introduced, in the preamble and episodes yet to be re-released, as a con man and fortune hunting companion to blackmailer Jason McGuire) (Dennis Patrick) searching for the supposed buried jewels of the Collins ancestors in the family mausoleum unwknowingly releases vampire Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid). Posing as a cousin of the modern family and descendant of the Barnabas who lived in 1795, he arrives at his old home to meet his modern relatives. Unknown to them he IS the Barnabas of the 18th century who was cursed as a vampire, and he makes plans to bring back his lost love of that era, Josette Dupres, in the form of her modern spitten image Maggie Evans (Kathryn Leigh Scott). After meeting her at her job at Collinsport Inn's coffee shop, Barnabas plans to kidnap Maggie to make her over as Josette. Meantime Willy is having after effects of his meeting with Barnabas, and slowly against his will becomes his slave and helps Barnabas to restore the old house back to what it was in the 1790s by night, while doing his best to keep Barnabas' secret from the modern family by day. Meanwhile Barnabas commisions Maggie's father Sam Evans (David Ford) to paint his portrait while he begins his attempts to turn Maggie into Josette and a vampire. Events which will mystify local Dr. David Woodard (Robert Gerringer), the modern Collins family, their governess Victoria Winters (Alexandra Moltke) and even her boyfriend Joe Haskell (Joel Crothers). What's next you ask? Go to my review of Volume 2, and so on. :-)
Rating:
Summary: The storyline that stole our breath away - in beautiful B&W
Review: Someone once told me that he didn't like black and white movies because they "didn't seem real". He had decided long ago that he would rather watch a mediocre color movie than a classic (even "Casablanca") in black and white.
By contrast, I began watching "Dark Shadows" on the Sci-Fi channel, seeing the last year of the series in all its campy glory (think about the 1970s, and how popular avocado-colored refrigerators were during that period - that gives you an idea of the color scheme). I had a hard time understanding the passion people had for Jonathon Frid or how any TV show could justify the position of "governess" in a modern drama. But then I began watching the first year of "DS", compiled here on DVD for the first time, shining in its original black and white photography. Rather than taking away from the viewing experience, the B&W adds to the gloomy charm, and frames the story in a timeless place where ghost stories can come true. The stately manor of Collinswood and Eagle Hill cemetary don't look so much like stage sets here, but like something sketched out of a dream, with dark corners and cobwebs. One of the other reviewers here compared DS to a theater play, which gives you an idea of what troopers these actors are. For some reason, ordinary people consider soap players to be the dregs of the acting world - when in reality, playing in a soap is possibly the hardest job an actor can take. There are daily shoots and rewrites, and on DS, actors often had to rely on a teleprompter to help them with their lines. (And this is not shameful - Marilyn Monroe supposedly had to have her lines pasted inside of a drawer she was using as a prop in a Billy Wilder flick. Even the President gets help from a prompter.) Joan Bennett, that great classic film star, stumbles a few times with her lines, but never loses her cool or her grace. Disc 2 is a real standout here, as Maggie Collins, played wonderfully (without a hint of camp) by Katheryn Leigh Scott, is slowly seduced by Barnabas Collins, vagabond vampire. As handsome as Joel Crothers is (and that's a lot of handsome), as Maggie's boyfriend Joe -- middle-aged Jonathan Frid's turn as Barnabas is all charm, with only a gleam of menace. It's not hard to see *here* why so many women viewers became obsessed with Frid, fantasizing that he'd crawl into their bedroom window. Anne Rice's Louis - not to mention Nick Knight of "Forever Knight", "Vampire: the Masquerade" RPGers, and Joss Whedon's creation "Angel" - should be paying royalties to Frid and series creator Dan Curtis. Frid turned a two-week stint (maybe) as a supernatural baddie into five years as daytime drama's unlikeliest hero, permanently changing the face of horror. Quite honestly, even froth like "Teen Wolf" could never have been made in a world without dear, angst-ridden, grieving Barnabas and the rest of the DS clan. The intro/menu screen has dramatic, creepy animation drifting through tangled trees, with each selected episode "zooming" into a bright window at Collinwood. Extras include short interviews with John Karlen, Leigh Scott and Frid, and a recap on Disc 1 bringing the series "up to date", prior to Barnabas showing up. Several hours of TV are boiled down to just 25 minutes, although it is a very well edited 25 minutes! This is the collection's main flaw. The first hundred and fifty episodes of "DS" were unpopular, more like a tepid gothic romance - lots of mood, no major payoff. However, the show turned around with the introduction of spectre Josette Collins (a saintly ghost who plays an even bigger role later in the series), and literal phoenix Laura Collins, and none of those episodes are on this DVD set.
Yes, Barnabas Collins is the primary reason behind the success of DS, along with the later introduction of Angelique, his tormentor... and yes, the seduction of Maggie Collins is really the first great storyline. But like all great daytime and continuing drama, it's the slow build-up and day to day details that create classic moments of tension and release. We don't see how dreadful Willie Loomis is before his run-in with Barnabas - those episodes aren't here - so his subsequent turnaround, into a tongue-tied good samaritan, is less special. Without seeing more about Laura Collins, it's hard to understand how little David Collins can fudge up a car in an attempt at homicide. He just seems like a really rotten kid from the 25 minute "recap", so why should we sympathize with him about Josette Collins' missing portrait? (Hilarious fan editor Graeme Cree refers to David simply as "Devil Tot".) Still, I wish I'd had the pleasure of seeing the show for the first time through these episodes, and this set is a terrific introduction and/or gift for a fan of gothic romance, gothic horror, and supernatural drama. The Sci-Fi channel has cancelled "Dark Shadows," meaning it will not be airing somewhere on TV for the first time in over 30 years - so this is it (unless SoapNet picks it up). This group of DVDs, 20 episodes per DVD, is much more cost-effective than buying similar VHS episodes. Happy howling!
Rating:
Summary: "My name is Victoria Winters . . ."
Review: Go on, you know you'd still run home from school to watch it if you could. Now you can rediscover the rush of ghoulish kitsch with the daytime Gothic soap that, decades after its cancellation, remains a cult phenom.
Here it comes again -- that night train carrying governess Victoria Winters to mythical Collinsport and the start of an enthralling TV saga. There's that handsome stranger (who will eventually time-travel to the alternate dimension of "Dharma & Greg" as Greg's well-oiled father) who ladles on ironic foreshadowing by way of introduction: "Welcome to the end of the world." Miss Vicki tosses off a response that would prove more ironic than even the show's production team realized at the time: "I'm afraid I'm not going that far. Only to a house called Collinwood." Oh, my dear, you're going much farther than the end of the world as you know it.
Creepy ol' Collinsport has never looked more inviting, thanks to the savvy folks at MPI Home Video who know how to serve up irresistible fan-fare in stylish boxed sets sprinkled with nifty extras. Collection 1 includes interviews with series stars Jonathan Frid, Kathryn Leigh Scott, and John Karlen, all of whom recall their DS experiences with fondness and appreciation for the unique opportunities the show provided. Not to mention the unexpected fanaticism it sparked.
The fan loyalty endures, despite the fact that, as Frid points out, "Dark Shadows" was one of the shortest-lived daytime soaps (airing on ABC from 1966-71). "We ran out of gas," is how he sums up the limitations of the show's specific material. "There are only a handful of classic horror stories, and we did them once and twice over." Why stop at once or twice? Now you can enjoy eternally crisp rewatchability in doses of 40 episodes per box.
Rating:
Summary: SINK YOUR TEETH INTO THIS CULT CLASSIC
Review: There are grand operas, horse operas and soap operas. But we're not horsing around when we say that there's only one grand, gothic soap opera --- the indestructible "Dark Shadows."
Premiering on ABC in 1966, it ran for five years, chalking up 1,225 episodes. And now it's time, once again, to sink our teeth into one of TV's more quixotic offerings. Pass the garlic, please.
And pass the DVD sets issued by MPI Home Video, dedicated folk who have worked tirelessly to bring the series out of its forgotten shadows and into an era of rediscovery. Each of the sets contain 4 discs, a chronicle of "Dark Shadows" episodes --- approximately 75 hours of our favorite fanged ghoul, Barnabas Collins, and the dark doings set in the small fictional fishing village of Collinsport, Maine. Be forewarned, however, that as much as we have a stake in the revival of the series, we question why MPI only included episodes #211 to
#412. (We asked the question, but they never answered. Talk about being kept in dark shadows.)
The late '60s were an odd time in our cultural history, a kind of a maturation into reality after the bland '50s and a precursor for the entitlement and permissiveness of the '70s. Violence permeated our society and its entertainment ... and escape was the order of the day. Dark Shadows brought us
to a strange set of performers playing even a stranger set of characters. Grayson Hall and Joan Bennett came from the movies, Jonathan Frid and David Selby came from the stage, and they were supported by actors and actresses who had spent literally decades gracing some of the most popular soap operas from radio and television.
Adding to the escapism was the time element. You were never quite sure what century you were in while visiting the New England branch of Transylvania. It could be modern-day Collinsport, or it could be the late 18th century. Performers could be playing the present-day characters, or their great
grandparents. Still, one thing was sure: High on Windows Hill stood the family manse, Collinswood (the name most likely came from Wilkie Collins, the author whose gothic gems graced book stalls in late Victorian times), and, regardless of the century, it was here that the haunted Collinses plied their depraved trade.
"Dark Shadows" had a narrative link in a way, but the performers never seem to know exactly where they are, were they've been, or, most importantly,where they were going. To be sure, there were the normal and accepted gaffs of daytime television, such as a boom mike boinking a performer on the head or people tripping over cables. But, there was the added zest of poor Joan Bennett looking confused, calling performers by their real names, and trying to cover rising panic with a look of sheer exotic boredom. Bennett made her first film well before the talky revolution, but she hadn't seen or heard everything yet, until she sojourned into daytime television.
As a matter of fact, the growth and development of the television show parallels to a greater or lesser extent the growth and development of theater of the absurd in America. The players and the set remained basically the same, but the period and action varied wildly. And, ultimately it didn't matter where you were, or where you thought you were, or where you thought you were going, because you were under the spell of the Collinses, in Collinsport, and they were in control. If the reality seemed fractured, hallucinatory and vaguely scary, well,
then, wasn't life exactly like that?
Dan Curtis, who also brought us "War and Remembrance," "The Winds of War," "The Night Stalker," "Dracula" and "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (both with Jack Palance) and the cult film "Burnt Offerings," spawned the series. But the greatest
success of this veritable one-man cottage industry is undoubtedly "Dark Shadows." The brooding gothic setting, the sprawling, elephantine plot twists and the idiosyncratic, not to say colliding, acting styles come together to create something unique and strangely satisfying.
For the last 20 years, there has been an annual Dark Shadows Festival, held either in the Los Angeles or New York area. This year, it will be held in Brooklyn at the end of August. An ominous press release informs us that this
year marks the final full fledged festival, the last of its line.
Knowing the denizens of Dark Shadows, we don't believe it for a moment!
Rating:
Summary: Missing episodes
Review: My mom was/is a huge fan of the show. As much as she loves Collection 1, she is bewildered as to what ever happend to the first 209 episodes. She was so looking forward to a complete series.
Rating:
Summary: The storyline that stole our breath away - in beautiful B&W
Review: Someone once told me that he didn't like black and white movies because they "didn't seem real". He had decided long ago that he would rather watch a mediocre color movie than a classic (even "Casablanca") in black and white.
By contrast, I began watching "Dark Shadows" on the Sci-Fi channel, seeing the last year of the series in all its campy glory (think about the 1970s, and how popular avocado-colored refrigerators were during that period - that gives you an idea of the color scheme). I had a hard time understanding the passion people had for Jonathon Frid or how any TV show could justify the position of "governess" in a modern drama. But then I began watching the first year of "DS", compiled here on DVD for the first time, shining in its original black and white photography. Rather than taking away from the viewing experience, the B&W adds to the gloomy charm, and frames the story in a timeless place where ghost stories can come true. The stately manor of Collinswood and Eagle Hill cemetary don't look so much like stage sets here, but like something sketched out of a dream, with dark corners and cobwebs. One of the other reviewers here compared DS to a theater play, which gives you an idea of what troopers these actors are. For some reason, ordinary people consider soap players to be the dregs of the acting world - when in reality, playing in a soap is possibly the hardest job an actor can take. There are daily shoots and rewrites, and on DS, actors often had to rely on a teleprompter to help them with their lines. (And this is not shameful - Marilyn Monroe supposedly had to have her lines pasted inside of a drawer she was using as a prop in a Billy Wilder flick. Even the President gets help from a prompter.) Joan Bennett, that great classic film star, stumbles a few times with her lines, but never loses her cool or her grace. Disc 2 is a real standout here, as Maggie Collins, played wonderfully (without a hint of camp) by Katheryn Leigh Scott, is slowly seduced by Barnabas Collins, vagabond vampire. As handsome as Joel Crothers is (and that's a lot of handsome), as Maggie's boyfriend Joe -- middle-aged Jonathan Frid's turn as Barnabas is all charm, with only a gleam of menace. It's not hard to see *here* why so many women viewers became obsessed with Frid, fantasizing that he'd crawl into their bedroom window. Anne Rice's Louis - not to mention Nick Knight of "Forever Knight", "Vampire: the Masquerade" RPGers, and Joss Whedon's creation "Angel" - should be paying royalties to Frid and series creator Dan Curtis. Frid turned a two-week stint (maybe) as a supernatural baddie into five years as daytime drama's unlikeliest hero, permanently changing the face of horror. Quite honestly, even froth like "Teen Wolf" could never have been made in a world without dear, angst-ridden, grieving Barnabas and the rest of the DS clan. The intro/menu screen has dramatic, creepy animation drifting through tangled trees, with each selected episode "zooming" into a bright window at Collinwood. Extras include short interviews with John Karlen, Leigh Scott and Frid, and a recap on Disc 1 bringing the series "up to date", prior to Barnabas showing up. Several hours of TV are boiled down to just 25 minutes, although it is a very well edited 25 minutes! This is the collection's main flaw. The first hundred and fifty episodes of "DS" were unpopular, more like a tepid gothic romance - lots of mood, no major payoff. However, the show turned around with the introduction of spectre Josette Collins (a saintly ghost who plays an even bigger role later in the series), and literal phoenix Laura Collins, and none of those episodes are on this DVD set.
Yes, Barnabas Collins is the primary reason behind the success of DS, along with the later introduction of Angelique, his tormentor... and yes, the seduction of Maggie Collins is really the first great storyline. But like all great daytime and continuing drama, it's the slow build-up and day to day details that create classic moments of tension and release. We don't see how dreadful Willie Loomis is before his run-in with Barnabas - those episodes aren't here - so his subsequent turnaround, into a tongue-tied good samaritan, is less special. Without seeing more about Laura Collins, it's hard to understand how little David Collins can fudge up a car in an attempt at homicide. He just seems like a really rotten kid from the 25 minute "recap", so why should we sympathize with him about Josette Collins' missing portrait? (Hilarious fan editor Graeme Cree refers to David simply as "Devil Tot".) Still, I wish I'd had the pleasure of seeing the show for the first time through these episodes, and this set is a terrific introduction and/or gift for a fan of gothic romance, gothic horror, and supernatural drama. The Sci-Fi channel has cancelled "Dark Shadows," meaning it will not be airing somewhere on TV for the first time in over 30 years - so this is it (unless SoapNet picks it up). This group of DVDs, 20 episodes per DVD, is much more cost-effective than buying similar VHS episodes. Happy howling!
Rating:
Summary: I'll try not to repeat any of the other reviews
Review: This collection of Dark Shadows episodes, the first in the ongoing reissues, has a special charm, not lost in the later episodes, but viewable here in its primal state. These episodes are very visual: perfectly choreographed images of Barnabas in the shadows, at the window of the Old House, that ironic smirk of his when he's said something with multiple meanings (lots of that going on), the painting of Barnabas, looks of fear and mystery and horrible nightmares, etc. The fact that this is all happening in black and white serves to intensify the gothic mood of horror, all of it building at a slow but powerful pace, creating the sense that the characters are all moving slowly but inescapibly towards some tragic destiny. One highlight of this set (and collection 2) is the conflict between Elizabeth and Jason. This brought out the best acting in Joan Bennett, with many impassioned and electrifying exchanges ensuing between the two. Dennis Patrick's acting is always pleasant to watch. The Irish dialect and the irony present in his veiled threats are perfectly executed. (It's a shame to learn the actor died recently.) And Jonathan Frid is always at his eeriest best. Another highlight is episode 233, Barnabas describing Josette's death. You may want to return briefly from the 1795 flashback (collection 6) to rewatch this. Unfortunately, you will have to wait until episode 264 (collection 2) for the powerful confrontation between Barnabas and Jason. I started watching Dark Shadows the first time around in the late 60's and followed a rebroadcast in the early 80's of the episodes in this collection. But it unfortunately ended before the storyline with Maggie was resolved. I had to wait twenty years to finally find out what happened! By now I'm up to collection 7 and probably won't stop. If you are going to purchase this set, be advised: you must eventually buy collections 2 and 3. In my opinion collection 3 ends at a good breaking point, wrapping up Willie Loomis' fate, and not yet establishing the new storylines. Special note for non-US buyers: all of my sets (1-6) have been in code 0, not code 1 ... I have had no problems viewing these on PCs or any European DVD players, assuming there's anyone in the world who hasn't yet gotten around the problem of the codes.
|
