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For Mother's Day, I saw the Tim Burton remake of Dark Shadows with my parents, which is appropriate since it's my mother and father who introduced me to Dark Shadows more than thirty years ago. Indeed, it was one of the first TV shows I was ever aware of and Barnabas Collins one of the first characters for whom my preschool brain ever created fan fictional ramblings. (Funny how I knew even then that he was cool character.)
The Original
The original TV show was a scraping-the-bottom-of-the-pail cheap vampire soap opera that owes much of its incredible popularity to its mind-blowingly low budget. Here was a show so cheap the actors scarcely had time to rehearse their lines before filming, a show so cheap it could rarely afford more than two takes of a scene, a show, which, therefore, boasts a legion of bloopers that went straight out on the air: mangled lines, boom shadows, wobbly tomb stones, production assistants streaking past the camera. It's hilarious. And this is necessary, because the actual stories are so heavily overwrought that they are hilarious too--and they need to be made fun of if we are to take them seriously. ( Read more... )
The Original
The original TV show was a scraping-the-bottom-of-the-pail cheap vampire soap opera that owes much of its incredible popularity to its mind-blowingly low budget. Here was a show so cheap the actors scarcely had time to rehearse their lines before filming, a show so cheap it could rarely afford more than two takes of a scene, a show, which, therefore, boasts a legion of bloopers that went straight out on the air: mangled lines, boom shadows, wobbly tomb stones, production assistants streaking past the camera. It's hilarious. And this is necessary, because the actual stories are so heavily overwrought that they are hilarious too--and they need to be made fun of if we are to take them seriously. ( Read more... )
