Monster of the Day #2063

Updated on January 22, 2020 By Ken Begg 10 Comments

Although the two Dark Shadows movies aren’t available (you can rent them, though) on Amazon Prime, the show is there, broken into hunks and story arcs. Of course it ran five days a week so there’s a lot of it. Meanwhile, there’s a pretty good documentary on the program and creator Dan Curtis called Master of Dark Shadows, which I watched on Prime over the weekend. For good or ill, Barnabas was probably the first sympathetic, tragic vampire paving the road decades later for Anne Rice and Laurel Hamilton and Stephanie Meyers.

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  • Gamera977

    I watched the two movies a few years ago and frankly they put me to sleep. I guess you need to be a fan of the TV series to enjoy them.

  • I dunno about first tragic vampire (I keep wanting to trot Varney the Vampire out, but can’t as, ha ha, I can get past Chapter One) but Collins is no doubt patient zero in that particular subgenre. As a Horror fan I probably should watch Dark Shadows. Except, ha ha again, I can’t get past the “first” episode.

    Speaking of Dan Curtis, Amazon Prime has his Dead of Night anthology film on it. While I can’t speak for the first two stories (for reasons), the final one, “Bobby”, is a real corker of a Horror story. Curtis must have thought so to, as he remade it for Trilogy of Terror II

  • Eric Hinkle

    Everyone talks about tragic vampires, and keeps forgetting poor Andrew Bennet from DC’s I… Vampire. I loved that one as a lad.

  • Gamera977

    Does anyone remember if vampires in this universe could be seen in mirrors? I use a mirror every time I shave and I don’t get anywhere near as smooth and beautiful a shave as Collins has here.

  • bgbear_rnh

    Just how do they make Vampire movies anyways when you can’t get their image?

  • Rock Baker

    My theory has always been that vampires can see their reflections, it’s just that the rest of us can’t. Unless we do, like in some movies!

  • Beckoning Chasm

    There’s a great use of that concept in “What We Do In the Shadows” (the movie, I don’t know about the TV show).

  • Eric Hinkle

    That reminds me of the vampire in King’s ‘The Night Flier’ who can see his reflection — of himself as the handsome man he once was rather than the hideous Orlockian monster he is now.

  • Beckoning Chasm

    Well, on the day this was posted, John Karlen died. He apparently appeared in a bunch of episodes over the series.

  • Rodford Smith

    I used to get home from high school just about the time this came on the TV. Since all I wanted right then was to relax for a while, I pretty much devoured the series. Starting from before they added the supernatural elements!