Into the Shadows

 The same year that Star Trek first warp drove its way across television sets throughout the country, a low budget gothic soap opera from the ABC network also crept onto the airways. Delighting fans of the macabre, it told the story of the affluent Collins family residing in Collinsport Maine and the strange goings on that  surrounded them..

 The creator of the show, Dan Curtis was originally a salesman working for NBC in the 50s. Deciding he wanted to branch out and create his own show he drew upon his early years being obsessed with horror, in particular Bela Lugosi’s portrayal of Dracula. 

Apparently the idea for Dark Shadows came to Curtis from a dream he had of a strange young woman on a train, taking a journey. After telling his wife about the dream he began to write something that would combine elements of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë and The Turn of The Screw by Henry James. The ABC network bought in on the concept and originally proposed a title of Shadows On The Wall which was quickly dismissed by Curtis, who opted for the more elegant Dark Shadows. And so a slice of TV history was served. Featuring werewolves, zombies, ghosts, warlocks & witches, parallel universes, time travel and of course Curtis’s favorite…Vampires. 

Initially the show didn’t pull good numbers for the network, who had no idea how to market this strange little oddity. After about thirteen weeks on the air Curtis’s children suggested making the show scarier. Curtis, presuming the show was going to be canceled anyway didn’t think he had anything to lose and went in the next day changing the storyline to include a ghost. Noticing a huge increase in viewers due to the ghosts inclusion, Curtis had found his secret sauce making the show spookier and seeing the ratings climb. Curtis kept pushing the boundaries until he thought of including the thing that had frightened him the most as a kid… When the vampire character of Barnabas Collins played by Jonathan Frid was introduced, the ratings went through the roof and Dark Shadows became a phenomenon. Curtis, like Star Trek’s Gene Roddenberry, was incredibly protective of his property and would continue to oversee all elements of the show’s production, probably part of the reason why it would attract between 7 to 9 million viewers almost daily. 

Featuring a talented cast who often would perform multiple roles, a tradition begun by Kathryn Leigh Scott who played Maggie Evans as well as Josette DuPres Collins, Rachel Drummond and Kitty Soames. 

In an exclusive interview for Famous Monsters of Filmland, Leigh Scott tells how these multiple roles came about…

“They were filming a clothes dummy in kind of a greenish light with horror makeup on to  create the ghost of Josette. They asked me what I thought of it and I told them it looks like a clothes dummy so they asked me to step in. My  actor friends on the show thought I was crazy they were asking me if I was getting paid for it which I wasn’t, the producers pointed out to me that they could have just used a dummy”

Running for a total of 1225 episodes, and taking inspiration from Edgar Allen Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson, Mary Shelley and Oscar Wilde, Dark Shadows continues to intrigue fans to this day with episodes (at time of writing) currently available for free on Tubi. The original show still finds a next generation of fans with its endlessly creative and spooky stories.

In 1991 the show was relaunched with a big budget,  high expectations and a fresh faced Joseph Gordon-Levitt but despite performing well, was not renewed.

Even Johnny Depp fulfilled a lifelong dream of portraying Barnabas Collins when his buddy Tim Burton, a fellow fan of the show, suggested they give the characters a big screen outing in 2012. 

It’s no surprise then, that even today television producer and writer Mark B. Perry (The Wonder Years and Party of Five)  is currently working to bring the Collins family back to the screen with Dark Shadows Reincarnation. The reboot will feature the twenty something year old daughter of the original series first protagonist Victoria Winters. Answering questions that shadows fandom have long since debated, maybe soon Dark Shadows will once again be in the limelight. 

The fantastic Kathryn Leigh Scott, legendary actress of tv and film, with appearances in shows including The Incredible Hulk, The A Team, Star Trek The Next Generation and Agents of Shield, will be joining us next weekend in Concord North Carolina for Mad Monster Expo. Taking place at Embassy Suites by Hilton Charlotte Concord Golf Resort & Spa

5400 John Q. Hammons Drive Northwest

Concord, NC 28027. August 25th-27th 2023.