Halloween Discussion Forums, Costumes, Horror!

I heard the rumor about this one somewhere else... Johnny Depp will play as Vamp, and Tim Burton will direct. Does anyone know more than I do? I did search on IMDB - but couldn't find it. If you do know about it, please post here. Thanks!

Hmmm. One of the original Dark Shadows fans here. To me, Jonathan Frid is forever Barnabas. I do love Johnny, but we'll see whether he can win me in this role.

At least he does look like a vampire. No Twilight foolishness going on with this one.

Has anyone here ever seen the Dark Shadows Revival Series? It's a 1991 mini-series that compresses most of the important events from the original show into 12 episodes. It's actually pretty good. It had been a while since I saw the original series and it was a nice little refresher. The music still really creeps me out.

You can currently watch the whole series on Hulu. Free.

• http://www.hulu.com/watch/63065/dark-sh ... s-p3-so-i0

I remember that series well; I watched it. Ben Cross & Joanna Going. It had much better production values than the original, but it failed in prime time.

I was one of the original DS fans, back in the '60s. Used to race home from school to see it around 3:30 or 4 in the afternoon. Part of its appeal was how unexpected it was in the TV landscape. Back then, everything in the afternoon was a game show or a soap opera (set invariably in hospitals or courtrooms, as they didn't show s-e-x on TV in those days).

Another thing that set Dark Shadows apart was that it invented the concept of the tormented vampire, the vampire who didn't want to be what he was. That was very, very original back then, but has become a cliche since. And the actor who played Barnabas, Jonathan Frid, was hired to be a traditional, scary vampire. He wasn't especially young or handsome. He really was kind of scary, but gradually, as the character developed, you began to feel for him. It really was a case of an evolving story line that gripped its audience. They struck gold, almost by accident, I think. And Frid, who was classically trained, was very, very good in that role.

If anybody can make it work in a movie, I'd think it might be Johnny Depp. But I don't know if anyone can ever catch that lightening in a bottle again.

Here it is kiddies! The first trailer...

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isjg9O7ifwM

It appears to be a campy comedy with Barnabas trying to get in touch with the modern era, circa 1972. Not much in common with the TV series except the character's names? Probably a lot like the Fright Night remake. So we're either gonna hate it, or we're gonna love it. I think I'm gonna like it. It is Burton and Depp after all. Heck... the trailer shows Barnabas trying to brush his fangs in the mirror even though he has no reflection. You gotta love that!


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"You may strategically place your wonderful lips on my
posterior and kiss it repeatedly" - Barnabas Collins (2012)

Here's the trailer on IO9 in case youtube does a takedown...

• http://io9.com/5893731/the-dark-shadows ... -movie-yet

Some pretty good comments down below.

I'm glad to have seen the trailer, because it looks like they are playing it as a comedy, which I didn't expect. I will most likely go, but I no longer expect it to approximate in any way the "feel" of the original DS. That show was actually a Gothic horror show. More mature viewers may well have regarded it as silly or campy, but I took it seriously, and I do think I was typical of its core audience at the time.

The music in this trailer is straight out of the 70s, and not at all similar to the iconic Dark Shadows theme music. I think the whole thing may be intended to send up the era which produced the original TV show.

I just saw the trailer. I'm kind of disappointed.

Is it just me or does Tim Burton do far better making his own brand of macabre than injecting it into pre-established concepts?

It will probably be fun in its way, just not at all like the original Dark Shadows, which is somewhat disappointing to those of us who loved it back in the day.

I think I may go see it. I know next to nothing of the original series so I can happily go in with no expectations

And hey, if it's really fun, it might be out on dvd by Halloween, so one more for the lineup!

They would be missing a beat not to release it to DVD before Halloween. And I believe I saw (either through the links above or elsewhere) that they are going to re-release the DS series. I can't begin to afford the whole thing (and probably wouldn't want it, anyway), but I think they are also releasing a "Best of Barnabas" DVD for a modest price. I might spring for that one. Barnabas wasn't the only story line on DS, but his was the one everyone remembers.

Looks like The Avengers is taking the a lot of business away from Dark Shadows and Battleship. DS is on life support.