Good Gothic Fun Lurks In ‘Dark Shadows’
January/13/1991 Filed in: The Pittsburgh
Press
The Pittsburgh Press
Sunday, January 13, 1991
Section J, Page 6
TV Review
____________________________________________
“Dark Shadows” When: Two-part mini-series air tonight and tomorrow at 9; premieres in its regular time slot at 9 p.m. Friday on NBC.
Stars: Ben Cross, Jean Simmons, Joanna Going, Roy Thinnes.
____________________________________________
Good Gothic Fun Lurks In ‘Dark Shadows’
By Robert Bianco
Fangs for the memories, Barnabas, but we do have a slight problem: Can a country facing Saddam Hussein still be scared by some English guy with a neck fetish?
Maybe not, but it could be fun watching him try.
In a season that has shown every intention of disappearing without a trace, this "Dynasty" in the dark is a welcome burst of silly style. The style may wobble a bit (all the humor is not intentional), and the show is hardly up to its "Jane Eyre" antecedents, but for four hours, at least, it's good Gothic fun.
Fans of the original will notice the change in scenery (production values have skyrocketed) and in our unhappy Prince of "Dark"-ness, Barnabas. Ben Cross makes Barnabas more somber and more overtly sensuous. Sex brings out the blood lust in him, don't you know.
Otherwise, the plot should seem familiar. Victoria Winters (Joanna Going) arrives in Collinwood to be the governess of the Collins' family bad seed. Thanks to crazy Willie the Caretaker (Jim Fyfe), who went snooping around the family tombs despite his mother's best advice ("It will only lead to trouble"), the family soon gets another visitor, Barnabas, who claims to be a long lost cousin from England.
Before you know it, Victoria and Barnabas are in love and blood-free bodies are popping up all over. For some reason, no one seems to suspect the only stranger in town, but then, people in horror movies always do have trouble picking up on the obvious.
While "Dark Shadows" never aims for camp, it does sometimes hit it unintentionally. A sympathetic vampire is, in itself, a campy creation. To honestly sympathize with him, you'd have to take his ridiculous plight seriously. There's
also some strange sexism going on here: Male vampires get to look normal, but female vampires have to run around with ratted hair and too much lipstick.
Then there's the dialogue, said with that straight-faced seriousness you find only in horror movies and medical shows:
"If she lost all that blood, where did it go?"
"Doctor, the curse of my existence is beyond the realm of your science."
"I think she's stable enough to try it. It just... might... work."
And perhaps it might.
Cross is as "horribly romantic"” (his pun, not mine) as a vampire fan could wish, though he might try being just a shade less intense. Jean Simmons, as matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, is a welcome sight whenever she appears, but she doesn't appear frequently enough. The rest of the cast overacts just enough to stay within the tone of the show.
Supernatural fantasy is a tough genre to sustain in series form; eventually you start to wonder how so many strange events can happen to one family. (In its five-year soap run, Collinwood turned into the Grand Central Station of the spirit world.) But for now, all we have to worry about are the first four hours, and those four hours are fairly entertaining.
And if Barnabas is a little mild for the '90s, well, who needs TV to scare us when real life is doing such a good job of it?
Sunday, January 13, 1991
Section J, Page 6
TV Review
____________________________________________
“Dark Shadows” When: Two-part mini-series air tonight and tomorrow at 9; premieres in its regular time slot at 9 p.m. Friday on NBC.
Stars: Ben Cross, Jean Simmons, Joanna Going, Roy Thinnes.
____________________________________________
Good Gothic Fun Lurks In ‘Dark Shadows’
By Robert Bianco
Fangs for the memories, Barnabas, but we do have a slight problem: Can a country facing Saddam Hussein still be scared by some English guy with a neck fetish?
Maybe not, but it could be fun watching him try.
In a season that has shown every intention of disappearing without a trace, this "Dynasty" in the dark is a welcome burst of silly style. The style may wobble a bit (all the humor is not intentional), and the show is hardly up to its "Jane Eyre" antecedents, but for four hours, at least, it's good Gothic fun.
Fans of the original will notice the change in scenery (production values have skyrocketed) and in our unhappy Prince of "Dark"-ness, Barnabas. Ben Cross makes Barnabas more somber and more overtly sensuous. Sex brings out the blood lust in him, don't you know.
Otherwise, the plot should seem familiar. Victoria Winters (Joanna Going) arrives in Collinwood to be the governess of the Collins' family bad seed. Thanks to crazy Willie the Caretaker (Jim Fyfe), who went snooping around the family tombs despite his mother's best advice ("It will only lead to trouble"), the family soon gets another visitor, Barnabas, who claims to be a long lost cousin from England.
Before you know it, Victoria and Barnabas are in love and blood-free bodies are popping up all over. For some reason, no one seems to suspect the only stranger in town, but then, people in horror movies always do have trouble picking up on the obvious.
While "Dark Shadows" never aims for camp, it does sometimes hit it unintentionally. A sympathetic vampire is, in itself, a campy creation. To honestly sympathize with him, you'd have to take his ridiculous plight seriously. There's
also some strange sexism going on here: Male vampires get to look normal, but female vampires have to run around with ratted hair and too much lipstick.
Then there's the dialogue, said with that straight-faced seriousness you find only in horror movies and medical shows:
"If she lost all that blood, where did it go?"
"Doctor, the curse of my existence is beyond the realm of your science."
"I think she's stable enough to try it. It just... might... work."
And perhaps it might.
Cross is as "horribly romantic"” (his pun, not mine) as a vampire fan could wish, though he might try being just a shade less intense. Jean Simmons, as matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, is a welcome sight whenever she appears, but she doesn't appear frequently enough. The rest of the cast overacts just enough to stay within the tone of the show.
Supernatural fantasy is a tough genre to sustain in series form; eventually you start to wonder how so many strange events can happen to one family. (In its five-year soap run, Collinwood turned into the Grand Central Station of the spirit world.) But for now, all we have to worry about are the first four hours, and those four hours are fairly entertaining.
And if Barnabas is a little mild for the '90s, well, who needs TV to scare us when real life is doing such a good job of it?