Another Very Special Holiday Review: The Christmas Presence

By JUSTIN PARTRIDGE

“You know, Good Will to All Men and stuff…” “And that’s enough to forgive me?” “For today? Yeah.”

Happy Yule, Ghouls! It is me again! Your favorite elf typing away from my snow covered roll top (there is a hole in the ceiling). Here is a real conversation that Wallace McBride and I had about the subject of today missive:

Me: Do we have a copy of The Christmas Presence? Or has that one already been done?

Wallace: It has not!

*a second later*

Wallace: I think it involves a turkey dinner coming to life. It’s been a while since I’ve listened to it, but some people HATE it.

*another second later*

Wallace: Like, Jar-Jar Binks hate.

*furiously and instantly typed from my end*

Me: GAHAHAH WHAT?! OH, man, now I’m SUPER excited

And honestly?! I don’t get it! Much more explicitly ABOUT Christmas, this blast from the range’s early past is a tremendously fun romp, one that revels in the mythos of the show and it’s emerging audio canon. Better still, this was the first audio that I have listened to here that actually felt and played like a TV episode! The gang is all here! Barnabas! (kinda) Willie! Maggie Evans! And the rest! Sure that turkey bit is ... a lot, but for my money, The Christmas Presence is a worthy addition to the “Christmas Special” canon. Right alongside the Rankin and Bass clay things and “Five Characters in Search of an Exit.” Shall we?

Though it was released in September of 2006 (something of a pattern for Big Finish’s Dark Shadows Christmas efforts), Scott Handcock’s script is very much in the Christmas Spirit. But fortunately for us it is more inspired by Krampus (a highly underrated Christmas horror film) than Christmas Vacation. Children have been going missing from Collinsport, but Quentin Collins (a warm, paternal performance from David Selby) has his own family to worry about. He sends out a psychic message to his family on Christmas Eve, but someone ... someTHING answers in his kin’s stead. Something hungry and something wearing the face of a friend.

Right from the jump, Handcock and director Gary Russell are leaning into the audio landscape of the season, integrating creepy carols into the story and playing up actor Toby Longworth’s jovial, but menacing vocal performance. But back up in Collinwood, the pair are taking some of our favorites through the preparation and anticipation for the holidays, giving the horror of the cold open a merry layer of pathos right underneath in the episode’s first part. It was here that I was struck at just how authentic to the TV episodes this story felt. I have talked a bit about how some of the later series do this, but those feel much more like a cohesive “expanded” universe that can stand on it’s own. But this one? It really felt like I was listening to a serial on a overly large tube TV once again and it was absolutely delightful.

Of course, while the script and direction deliver the foundation of a good Dark Shadows yarn, they are immediately classed up by the stable of wonderful actors that the range attracts. This also continues to add to the authenticity of the line. I have spoken at length about how great regulars like Lara Parker, David Selby, and Kathryn Leigh Scott are and if you’re here, you get it too. They again impress here, especially Parker who gets to display a more domestic and empathetic Angelique, but I was truly happy to hear John Karlen back in the fold! Even better, this episode was a much better display of Andrew Collins’ prowess as the newly regenerated Barnabas Collins. I loved his inclusion in Bloodlust, but I didn’t really get the best sense of him. Thankfully The Christmas Presence gave me that in spades, along with some fantastic Collins family supernatural hijinks, wrapped in the beautiful trappings and melancholies of Christmas.

Even despite a dead turkey coming to life and attacking Maggie (a scene in which everyone plays DEADLY straight which kind of adds to the charm TBH), The Christmas Presence is a lovely, spooky good time and is undeserving of the derision foisted upon it by a picky fandom. It could just be that I have low standards. I dunno. But I had a blast with this one and I feel like you and yours would to if you wanted to give it a spin while decorating your tree. But honestly if you haven’t got a tree by now, it might be a waste of good listening (and drinking eggnog) time.

From us to you, Happy Christmas, and I’ll be seeing you.   

Justin Partridge has always loved monsters and he thinks that explains a lot about him. When he isn’t over analyzing comics at Newsarama or ranting about Tom Clancy over at Rogues Portal, he is building Call of Cthulhu games, spreading the good word of Anti-Life, or rewatching Garth Marenghi's Darkplace for the dozenth time. He can be reached at the gasping Lovecraftian void that is Twitter @j_partridgeIII or via e-mail at [email protected] Odds are he will want to talk about Hellblazer.   

Spend Christmas at Collinwood

Lyndhurst Mansion, the Tarrytown, N.Y. property that served as the fictional "Collinwood" in both HOUSE and NIGHT OF DARK SHADOWS, will summon a few ghosts on the estate this Christmas. "Mr. Dickens Tells a Christmas Carol" recreates Charles Dickens’ own performances of the classic tale that brings the travails of Ebenezer Scrooge, Bob Cratchit, and Tiny Tim to life. Actor Mikel Von Brodbeck plays Charles Dickens, who uses the author's original script as he takes guests on a tour of the main floor of Lyndhurst where you will meet various spirits and characters that haunt the grounds.

The event takes place Dec. 14-30. Visit Showclix to purchase tickets to the event.

Now, if we can only convince them to host a live reading of the Big Finish audio "The Christmas Presance."

H/T to @willmckinley.

Yes, Victoria, there is a Santa Claus

Collinsport has little use for the outside world. Moon landings? Vietnam? Woodstock? DARK SHADOWS refused to make room in its narrative for anything taking place outside its own magical realm (although The Beatles somehow managed to slip onto the jukebox at The Blue Whale just a few days before Barnabas Collins made his debut.) Current events had a way of sometimes interfering with the show's broadcast schedule, but nothing ever seemed important enough to force the writers overtly recognize the march of history.

The show's mania for narrative also meant ignoring everything from the change of seasons to traditional holidays. In answer to Bob Geldof/Midge Ure's question, "No, they don't know it's Christmas." Or any other holiday, for that. When your cast of characters involves blood-drinking fiends, werewolves, black magick aficionados and charlatan ministers, it's probably best not invite Santa Claus to the party.

But that leaves us with questions, doesn't it? Unless Collinsport is an extra-dimensional limbo, Christmas had to have rolled around at some point in the course of events, right? I like to imagine that Barnabas Collins halted his blasphemous plans to graft his head onto the body of a golem in hopes of making a developmentally delayed young woman fall in love with him, taking a moment to celebrate the birth of Christ ... but the writers only had 30 minutes a day to tell their story, so why not focus on elements that aren't going to get them massive amounts of hate mail?

Big Finish had a very different set of creative obstacles to clear when they revived DARK SHADOWS as a series of audio dramas. Hitting a day-to-day broadcast schedule with ruthless efficiency was not one of them, a situation that freed the producers to pluck from the show's rich, centuries-spanning history. And among that history, we soon found, were traditional holidays. Yes, Victoria, there is a Santa Claus.

Released in 2006, "The Christmas Presence" reunites Lara Parker and John Karlen as "Angelique" and "Willie Loomis," two characters that didn't get much screentime together on the original series. Also appearing are Kathryn Leigh Scott as "Maggie Evans," and Big Finish's official successor to Jonathan Frid, Andrew Collins as "Barnabas Collins." If you want to let DARK SHADOWS help you conjure a holiday spirit or two, there are a lot of interesting ways to get your hands on this 76-minute long tale. First, you can visit Big Finish directly, which has the story available as a MP3 download and compact disc. "The Christmas Presence" is also available on Amazon, but for reasons know only to its own mysterious algorithm, expect to pay a little more for it there than at Big Finish.

Amazon also has "The Christmas Presence" available through it's Audible service. And, if you're already subscribing to Spotify, you can listen to the story (and lots of other DARK SHADOWS audio dramas) in their entirety.


Back in 2012, Big Finish crafted a second Christmas story, one that felt a little like the kind of offbeat specials presented seasonally by DOCTOR WHO. Despite it's rather direct title, "A Collinwood Christmas" veers about as far from expectations as possible, casting David Selby's son Jamison in the role of "Jamison Collins." If you're just tuning in, David Selby so liked the name of David Henesy's character "Jamison Collins" that he gave the name to his own son, thus creating a reality-threatening maelstrom of Davids and Jamesons that made this paragraph super complicated to write.

I liked "A Collinwood Christmas" so much that the CHS hosted a "tweetalong" event on Twitter so that DARK SHADOWS fans could listen and chat about the episode live ... and hardly anybody showed up. I remain unbowed in my original assessment of "A Collinwood Christmas" and still think it's worth an hour of your time this holiday season. As with "The Christmas Presence" it's available from Big Finish, Amazon, Audible and Spotfy.