Has Dark Shadows outgrown Victoria Winters?

Warning: The following column contains spoilers for the 2012 DARK SHADOWS movie.

I've had the opportunity in recent weeks to revisit the early days of DARK SHADOWS. I've been writing about these episodes in the new DARK SHADOWS DIARY feature, and took a look at how Marilyn Ross handled these pre-Barnabas Collins stories in the line of paperback novels. It feels a little like going home, but in a way I've never really left.

None of us have. Because DARK SHADOWS won't let us.

Alexandra Moltke

I don't mean that in a romantic sense. It just seems like the entire concept of DARK SHADOWS can't escape the arrival of Victoria Winters at Collinwood, even when it's entirely unnecessary. Those early stories have created a number of problems for later interpretations of DARK SHADOWS, beginning with HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS in 1970, right up to this year's film by Tim Burton. With the exception of NIGHT OF DARK SHADOWS, later interpretations of the original television series sought to "reboot" the story with the introduction of Barnabas Collins. The problem facing writers from the very beginning has been: What do you do with Victoria Winters?

Originally played by Alexandra Moltke, the Collinwood governess was the television show's heroine when the series launched in 1966. The mystery of her heritage, specifically her potential relationship to the Collins family, was the driving focus of the series ... until a certain vampire knocked on the front door of the mansion. Victoria later became the romantic foil for Barnabas Collins, but there was little doubt that she had been usurped as the central protagonist of DARK SHADOWS. When Moltke left the show, other actresses tried to fill her shoes, but it was too little, too late. Victoria Winters had become an obsolete concept and was written out of the series.

The show continued quite well without her, with the bulk of the romantic "heavy lifting" displaced to the shoulders of Kathryn Leigh Scott's "Maggie Evans." The two characters conceptually merged in the series when Evans was inexplicably made governess of Collinwood, with the two characters literally becoming one in the Tim Burton movie.

Joanna Going

The 1991 "revival" series also struggled to make use of Victoria Winters. The character, as played by Joanna Going, became a surrogate for the audience, a glorified tour guide for the world of Collinsport. She (again) became a romantic foil for Barnabas Collins, but the mystery of her relationship to the Collins family was dropped entirely. There was little for Victoria Winters to do in the series besides react to the events around her. It was a character with no goals, and was consequently lifeless. It's worth pointing out that the 1991 series was the first time Josette and Victoria became "spiritually" related, a plot point that emerged again in the 2012 film as the Maggie/Victoria/Josette knot became fully tied.

So, what's next for DARK SHADOWS? If the story is revived again it seems likely that it will be as a television series instead of a feature film. If the Tim Burton movie showed us anything, it's that DARK SHADOWS is simply too big to be contained to a two-hour movie. The story has to be about something more than Barnabas Collins being freed from his tomb. The residents of Collinsport are more than just prey for a vampire, and it's the richness of character that keeps audiences coming back to the original series as later interpretations are slowly forgotten.

But where does this leave Victoria Winters? As a character, she was the victim of natural selection when DARK SHADOWS evolved from a gothic romance into a funky brew of horror and science fiction. While its a source of constant disappointment to fans that the show's original mystery was never resolved, Dan Curtis figured out there was more to the show than Victoria Winters. Its most successful iteration, HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS, dropped the conceit entirely, and was better for it. Still, Curtis felt the need to revive it for the 1991 series, as did Tim Burton in 2012. Neither had any success making us care about Victoria.

The biggest problem with using Victoria Winters as your hero is it requires writers to combine two very different television shows into a single narrative. One story tells of the arrival of a governess to Collinwood in search of her lost family. The other is a horror story about a vampire let loose upon the world after 200 years of bondage. Neither have much in common besides setting, and Barnabas' romantic interests in a woman who might be a relative adds an icky layer of incest to the tale. But using Victoria Winters while dropping her backstory is also a pointless endeavor, because that backstory is the only thing that makes her interesting.

As a fan, I hope the next creative team to carry the torch for DARK SHADOWS figures out how to properly incorporate the character into a new story, or decides to abandon her entirely. I've got no interest in seeing yet another regurgitation of Victoria Winters In Name Only.

What are your thoughts on the subject?

Catch glimpses of the real Jonathan Frid in Seizure

 By WILL McKINLEY

“Here, you take it,” Jonathan Frid said, handing me a VHS tape. “I’m never going to watch it.”

It was the mid-1980s. I was a high school student, working for the former Dark Shadows star nights and weekends on a series of one-man shows that had originated at fan conventions and went on to tour nationally. No money was exchanged for my labors, but on occasion the 60-year-old actor would give me memorabilia. Considering he was the closest thing I had to an idol, I found this far more rewarding than getting paid.

This particular piece of video remuneration was SEIZURE, the independently produced thriller Frid made in his native Canada in 1974. He had done very little high-profile acting work in the three years since the cancellation of the show that made him famous, but Frid still managed to earn top billing. The cast was eclectic: Bond girl Martine Beswick; former teen idol Troy Donahue; soon-to-be St. Elsewhere nurse Christina Pickles; one-time Warhol superstar Mary Woronov; and future Fantasy Island plane spotter Hervé Villechaize. 

But I didn’t care about the rest of the actors; my interest was in the lead - because, at that moment in history, no Jonathan Frid performance was available on home video. The idea that 1,225 episodes of Dark Shadows would someday be sold on VHS (and again, on DVD) was the stuff of pipe dreams. You couldn’t even get HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS, the 1970 feature film based on the show, on tape back then. I was forced to watch an off-air recording I made when the film aired - in heavily edited form - on local TV.  And watch I did, so often that the oxide had begun to flake off.

There was a Jonathan Frid drought in those days, and the man himself had just led me to an oasis. Not only was a Frid film on video for the first time, it was a movie I had never seen. SEIZURE was legendary among Dark Shadows fans. Although only a decade old, it was considered a “lost” film, often mentioned in fanzines, but rarely seen, due to some rumored shadiness by its producers. 

“Manage your expectations,” Jonathan warned me, perhaps sensing my enthusiasm. “It’s not very good.”

“You never think anything you’re in is good,” was my typically smart-assed retort. 

This was true. Like most demanding artists, Frid was harder on no one more than himself. And Dark Shadows, with its frequent flubs and technical limitations, was an exercise in humility for its perfectionistic star. 

Jonathan laughed. “We’ll see how you feel after you watch it.”

I completed my tasks, left the apartment in Gramercy Park and sprinted up to Penn Station for the Long Island Railroad commuter train. Even though Frid’s building was only a few blocks from the subway, I almost always walked there and back from 34^th Street. My parents had only just begun to allow me to travel into the city unaccompanied, and public transportation was still “an uncertain and frightening journey.” I didn’t mind. Walking made me feel like a real New Yorker.

When I got home, I popped open the clamshell case and slid the tape in my VCR. An ominous underscore rumbled out of the speakers of my new 19” stereo TV, followed by what sounded like the crash of a gong. “SEIZURE” the white-on-black title read, in all caps, “Starring JONATHAN FRID.” This was so exciting, like unearthing a lost Shakespeare play, or a previously undiscovered chapter of the Bible - The Book of Jonathan.

As the gong rang out, a folksy guitar kicked in, augmented by a clarinet and electric piano. The score (by Canadian jazz recording artist Lee Gagnon) was not what I expected from a “thriller,” but I’d watched enough ‘70s horror movies on late night TV to expect weirdness. The black screen slowly dissolved to a pastoral lakeside tableau as the opening titles continued, leading to a final credit that means more now than it did then.

Yes, SEIZURE was Oliver Stone’s directorial debut, though he has since creatively disowned it. He also wrote the film, with Edward Mann (a syndicated cartoonist) and co-edited it. And his wife was the art director.  (They divorced not long after and, according to Frid, bickered frequently during production.)

The film opens in a small, Colonial-style bedroom in a house by a lake. Frid is asleep, in very un-vampiric striped pajamas. A towheaded little boy rouses him, and he awakens with a scream, sweaty and startled.

“Mommy told me to come wake you up,” the boy apologizes. “The guests are coming today.”

Cut to the bathroom. Frid’s character is shaving, in PJs and tousled hair (no “Barnabas Bangs” in sight). His wife (Christina Pickles) walks in and looks at him with concern.

“I had the dream again,” he says mournfully. “Same one. Same way.”

Three minutes in and so far, so good! As a Dark Shadows fan, the reference to dreams excited me, because they play a huge part in the show’s mythology. Series creator Dan Curtis supposedly conceived the original storyline in a dream (complete with camera angles for the opening scenes), and a lengthy storyline from 1968 involved characters (including Barnabas) plagued by recurring nightmares that lead to real-life terrors. 

“Is it possible?” I wondered. “Could this be a sort-of unofficial Dark Shadows sequel?”

Frid plays horror novelist Edmund Blackstone, husband of Nicole and father to Jason, (Timothy Ousey), an adorable 10-year-old who bears a striking resemblance to Dark Shadows’ mischievous moppet David Henesy. The Blackstones have invited five friends for the weekend: Charlie Hughes (Joseph Sirola) a boorish entrepreneur; Mikki Hughes (Woronov), his much-younger wife; Serge Kahn (Roger De Koven), an elderly Russian businessman; his death-obsessed wife Eunice (Anne Meacham); troublemaker Mark Frost (Donahue, still shirtless at age 38); and Nicole’s brother Gerald (Richard Cox), who is inexplicably British. 

Stone efficiently introduces the characters, and establishes that there has been an escape from a local psychiatric facility. When unexplainable things begin to happen at the house, we are encouraged to wonder if they are real, or a fantasy concocted in the creatively curdled, misanthropic mind of the author.

Frid always deftly negotiated the fence between good and evil on Dark Shadows, and here again he makes the most of Blackstone’s duality. He is ostensibly the hero, but his behavior belies that when an odd trio of human monsters descends upon the quiet compound. 

And odd they are. Beswick plays the sexy and sadistic “Queen of Evil” (the film’s original title), said to be a manifestation of Kali, the “dark mother” deity of the Hindu faith. Dracula-like, she twirls a black cape and spouts stoner-Goth nonsense like, “Don’t ask us who we are, or where we come from. We are without beginning or end.” Kali apparently enjoyed child sacrifices back in the day, and the Queen spends much of the film seeking out Edmund’s son in hopes of roasting him in the fireplace in her own honor. 

Villechaize is Spider, a bearded, knife-wielding dwarf (the script’s description, not mine) preening about in red motley and a stylish bone necklace. According to Serge (who’s primary narrative responsibility is reciting long, expository speeches), Spider is the embodiment of Louis the Cruel, a malevolent French prince from nearly a century ago. 

“I am old and I am ugly. But remember, my race was born inside your belly,” Herve enigmatically proclaims, in an accent that is much harder to discern without Mr. Rourke around to translate.

Villechaize was also the on-set photographer, which may explain why all the stills are shot from a low angle.

See what I mean?

The last of the baddies is The Jackal (Henry Judd Baker), a torturer “imported” from West Africa to be a Russian executioner (again, according to Serge, who must have read an earlier draft of the script). He’s also gigantic and mute, which means there are no hilarious lines of his to quote. Coincidentally(?), Baker also played the mute bodyguard Istvan on four episodes of Dark Shadows in 1969.

The Queen and her henchman pit the vacationing friends against each other in a series of Survivor-esque physical challenges and the cast members begin to slowly eliminate each other, one by one. Along the way, we get to see Jonathan Frid making out with (and getting felt up by) Martine Beswick, knife fighting a half-naked Mary Woronov and engaging in a brief love scene with Christina Pickles.

While SEIZURE shares some storyline similarities with Dark Shadows - the dream motif, overlapping realities with uncertain boundaries, a female villain calling the shots - it’s completely different in tone and content, and far less charming. But the modern-day setting, and the mortal nature of the lead character allow glimpses of a Jonathan Frid I never saw on the soap. In real life, Frid was a complex man, sometimes short-tempered and mercurial of mood. There are moments in this film when the character of Edmund Blackstone reminds me of the guy I knew in a way that Barnabas Collins never did. That may be in part what appealed to Frid about this project - the opportunity to play a flawed protagonist whose evil grew from human cowardice, not from the supernatural.   
  

 Looking objectively at SEIZURE today, I agree with Jonathan’s assessment. It’s not very good. But back then, I thought it was the greatest thing ever. I loved seeing him in horn-rimmed glasses, wearing clothing he still owned a decade later. I caught traces of his Canadian accent creeping into his dialogue and noticed that his character used an expletive Jonathan himself was particularly fond of. This was the closest to “the real Jonathan Frid” I had ever seen on screen, and was ever likely to see, considering that he had essentially retired from film acting after making two movies that he hated. As a kid who looked at Frid as a unique combination of father figure, mentor and friend, this was just about the best gift I could get.  

I played that tape at least once a week for months, to the point where I had memorized every one of his lines. I never admitted that to him, of course. I liked the fact that, though I was young, Jonathan respected me and treated me like more than just a fan - even though that’s what I was, and remain.

“So what’s your review?” he asked, the next time I came to work.

“It was okay,” I said, still playing it cool.

Jonathan and I talked a bit more about the movie that day, and how, due to budget limitations, the cast and crew lived in the house in which they filmed. He made it sound like a glorified student film, particularly when he mentioned that the “young director” was a recent graduate of New York University.

“(Dark Shadows producer) Bob Costello is a professor there,” he said to me. “Maybe you should look into that school.”

And that’s what I did. In the fall of 1986, I entered the Undergraduate Film and TV program at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Frid was the subject of my sophomore documentary, and my senior thesis film was based on a short story he performed in his one-man shows. It was a piece I had found for him, during one of the many Saturdays I had spent trolling my local library for material. Jonathan came to the premiere of my film in 1991 and offered a review even more concise than the one I had given him, years before.

“Perfect,” he said.

I bought a bootleg of SEIZURE recently (it’s never been legitimately released), put it in my DVD player, and was immediately transported back to that first viewing more than a quarter of a century ago. It’s amazing how much of the film I remembered, how many of the lines I could still recite along with him. One of them had particular resonance, considering recent events:

“An artist is without end,” Frid says, in his final scene. “He can never die.”

Will McKinley is a New York City-based writer, producer and classic film obsessive. He’s been a guest on Turner Classic Movies, Sirius Satellite Radio and the TCM podcast. Will has written for PBS and his byline has appeared more than 100 times in the pages of NYC alt weeklies like The Villager. He watched his first episode of "Dark Shadows" on April 12, 1982 and hasn't been the same since.

For Dark Shadows, "dead" is relative

Since the relative failure of DARK SHADOWS at the box office this summer, a lot of people have been touting the death of the property. The reasoning, as far as I can tell, is if Johnny Depp and Tim Burton can't make Dark Shadows a success, then who can?

You have to overlook a lot of history in order for that argument to make sense. Dark Shadows has been living on borrowed time since it's debut in 1966, repeatedly proving itself to be a concept that defies the rules of traditional entertainment. Dark Shadows survived one attempt on its life by adding Barnabas Collins to the cast in 1967, and continued to evolve to meet the demands of the growing audience until it collapsed under its own weight in 1971. Even then, the original show managed to generate a second theatrical film in NIGHT OF DARK SHADOWS the following year.

Dark Shadows surfaced a few more times in public television and syndication and, much like STAR TREK, didn't let a little thing like cancellation keep its fanbase from thriving. It returned to the air in 1991 with a new cast (and a primetime slot) for a few months, and the original show returned to daytime television again a few years later when the Sci-Fi Channel put two episodes a day in regular rotation.

In between these video highpoints were Dark Shadows books published by cast members Kathryn Leigh Scott and Lara Parker, comics, new soundtrack albums and dozens of fanzines. Dark Shadows has never let defeat stand in its way before, and I doubt a little thing like the middling box office returns of the 2012 Dark Shadows movie will prove to be much of an obstacle.

What's sad is that most of the people heralding the end of Dark Shadows are some of its most devoted fans. Things have gotten so nasty that many of us who run fanpages are hesitant to even mention the film. I've been put in the awkward position of defending a movie I clearly did not enjoy, not because I think it's especially worth defending, but because it's now part of Dark Shadows lore ... whether we like it or not.

More to the point, the movie has it's fans. Those of us still madly in love with the original Dark Shadows don't want to hear this, but it's true. But don't take my word for it ... visit Tumblr and see for yourself. The movie has its own distinct audience and we've nothing to gain by alienating them. Fandom can be reactionary and territorial (usually to its own detriment) and all of this bickering is getting boring.

Worse, it's sending a very clear message to younger fans who have discovered Dark Shadows through the Burton movie ... and that message is "You are not welcome here." If you're anxious to see Dark Shadows fade away into obscurity, alienating new fans is the way to go.

I don't know what's next for Dark Shadows. There's been a lot of chatter among fans of where the property will next take roost, but it's an impossible thing to predict. Movies and television shows are created and killed for the strangest reasons. ANGEL was cancelled by the WB to make room for a new Dark Shadows television show in 2004 because the network didn't want to air two vampire programs at once. HELLBOY 2 got made because Universal wanted to be in the Guillermo del Toro business. And SUPERMAN RETURNS got made because Warner Bros had spent more than a decade (and millions of dollars) trying to get a Superman movie off the ground, and needed a way to recoup some of those expenses.

In other words, the next time Dark Shadows is resurrected, it might not be for the reasons you expect. But I learned a long time ago never to bet against Barnabas Collins.

10 Things I Didn't Know About "Dark Shadows"

or HAPPY ‘DARK SHADOWS’ INDEPENDENCE DAY

 By WILL McKINLEY

Mark this date on your calendar (preferably in blood red ink): Tuesday, July 3, 2012. That’s the day loyal fans of the original Dark Shadows television series regain our creative independence.

As of this writing, there is only one movie theater left in New York City still showing Tim Burton’s well-intentioned but creatively misguided feature film reboot of the 1960s supernatural soap. On Tuesday that changes. As talentless divorcee Katy Perry and the giraffe-necked, British Spider-Man stumble and swoop into theaters for the 6-day 4th of July “weekend,” the ersatz DARK SHADOWS will finally be re-chained in its cinematic coffin in the United States. And that will be that.

The film may occasionally haunt a few bargain basement matinees in outlying vistas but, in the words of time traveling governess Victoria Winters, our “uncertain and frightening journey” is about to come to a long-anticipated end.

It’s safe to say that most devotees of the original didn’t particularly care for Burton and screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith’s “reimagining.” Personally, I enjoyed the homage to recently departed series star  Jonathan Frid that infused Johnny Depp’s performance as Barnabas, though I disliked the film itself.

But, here’s the good news: they didn’t burn the old tapes of the TV show. They still exist, and you can still watch them. And guess what? Thanks to the publicity generated by a big budget, major studio, summer blockbuster release ($227.4 million international gross so far!), the show we all love is now easier to enjoy than ever before.

To wit: a beautiful, full-series, 131-disc box set, currently in its second printing (available July 10) after the first one (autographed by Frid, just prior to his death) sold out; two well-curated “best of” compilations hosted by series stars Kathryn Leigh Scott (Maggie/Josette) and Lara Parker (Angelique); and 32 “value-priced,” 40-episode DVD sets for sale in big box retailers like Target. Plus, the first 40 shows (beginning with the unchaining of Barnabas) are now streaming on Amazon, Hulu and Netflix. (Yes, I know that Netflix used to offer more episodes to subscribers. But can you blame longtime rights holder MPI Home Video for wanting to sell their DVD sets during this window of huge publicity? I can’t.)

Even better, the interest generated in Collinsport and its spooky inhabitants has led to a boon in licensed products: action figures; model kits; costumes; new audio dramas; a comic book from Dynamite Entertainment; re-issues of two DS novels by Lara Parker; and a new book (Dark Shadows: Return to Collinwood) by Kathryn Leigh Scott. But the best of these “brand extensions” is Barnabas & Company: the Cast of the TV Classic Dark Shadows, a well-researched reference volume by Craig Hamrick and R.J. Jamison.

After three decades as a fan, I rarely hear or read things about Dark Shadows I don’t already know. But this thick publication - at 500+ pages, Professor Stokes could barely get a wooden stake through it - is riddled with veins of trivia that will delight longtime fans. Unlike other books on the series, Barnabas & Co is devoted almost entirely to the show’s talented troupe of actors, with obsessively footnoted chapters on 44 members of the core cast, many based upon personal interviews conducted by co-author Craig Hamrick (who passed away in 2006). Each contains a list of the characters the performer portrayed, the number of episodes in which he or she appeared, and an exhaustive listing of other film, TV and theater credits. In that regard, I believe this is the most detailed and complete summary of the careers of the Dark Shadows cast members, and such a thing is long overdue.

There are also shorter, but equally informative sections on 60 members of the supporting cast, also with characters, airdates and episode totals. Other highlights include a photo gallery, an extensive recounting of the program’s creative history, a list of fan conventions, a section on collectibles and ephemera, and a hilarious chapter simply entitled Nudity.

The following is a list of 10 previously unknown facts about Dark Shadows cast members I learned about from Barnabas & Company:

1. Oscar nominee Harvey Keitel appeared in two episodes in 1966 as a customer at the Blue Whale.
2. Humbert Allen Astredo (Nicholas Blair) got his start as a stand-up comedian.
3. Nancy Barrett (Carolyn Stoddard) was married to David Ford (Sam Evans) in 1967. She was twenty years his junior and the marriage lasted less than two years.
4. Donald Briscoe (Chris/Tom Jennings) once showed up for work in the midst of an acid trip and ‘ended up sitting in a trash can’ in the production office.
5. Mitchell Ryan (Burke Devlin #1) was fired due to a ‘drinking problem.’ “I was so drunk that year, I barely remember what it was about,” he told TV Guide in 1976.
6. Joan Bennett’s partner for the last two decades of her life was a cross-dresser. Joan knew, and was apparently okay with it. After three divorces and the near murder of her boyfriend by her husband, producer Walter Wanger, this was apparently no big deal.
7. Roger Davis (Jeff Clark) “interfered with the lighting and blocking of scenes, presumably so he could appear on camera more favorably.” About Davis, Joan Bennett once said, “He thinks that he’s Henry Fonda - except he has no talent.”
8. Diana Millay (Laura Collins) believes she has lived many past lives, including one as a phoenix - the supernatural creature she played on the show.
9. Thayer David (Professor Stokes) had a collection of “hundreds of monster movie model kits.” His mother kept them in his bedroom, which was maintained for nearly a decade after his unexpected death from a heart attack in 1978 at the age of 51. According to his nephew, the room was “off-limits” to other family members.
10. Alexandra Moltke (Victoria Winters) left the show when she was pregnant with her first child. Her son was born on June 27, 1969 - the third anniversary of the premiere of Dark Shadows. She was asked to return to the show, but insisted on playing a vampire or a witch. Her request was denied.

In closing, let me also strongly encourage you to buy the Blu-ray of the movie when it’s released, likely around Halloween. (Remember I said you have to buy it. I didn’t say you had to watch it.) If it sells well, Warner Bros. will be more likely to release HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS (1970) and NIGHT OF DARK SHADOWS (1971) on DVD or Blu-ray, perhaps even (in the case of NIGHT) with restored footage.

But remember, after all is said and done, Tim Burton’s DARK SHADOWS will likely turn a profit. That means a sequel is a distinct possibility. Now how’s that for a cliffhanger?

Will McKinley is a New York City-based writer, producer and classic film obsessive. He’s been a guest on Turner Classic Movies, Sirius Satellite Radio and the TCM podcast. Will has written for PBS and his byline has appeared more than 100 times in the pages of NYC alt weeklies like The Villager. He watched his first episode of "Dark Shadows" on April 12, 1982 and hasn't been the same since.