Dark Shadows Episode Three

“Episode 3.” Dark Shadows. ABC. Various stations. 29 June 1966.

We open with Roger Collins racing towards a cottage. Pounding on the door gets him no response, so he leaves in a huff.

Back at Collinswood, Victoria is busy writing a letter when Carolyn introduces herself. She seems nice, but she still offers to help Victoria pack. Convinced that Victoria isn’t going to flee that night, Carolyn then offers to answer her questions. Carolyn makes it clear she has no idea who Devlin is or has any interest in Joe Haskell. Who catches her fancy then? Why, her Uncle Roger, who else? Yeah, I suppose this was less creepy in the 1960’s, I guess.

Speaking of Devlin, he’s meeting with none other than Joe Haskell at the Blue Whale. He drops some hints about Carolyn, prompting Joe to sit down.

Roger arrives at the Inn. The picture becomes clearer, as the man he was trying to see earlier was Maggie’s father. He tries his charming act, trying to figure out where her old man is and even offers to buy one of his paintings. Maggie seems hopeful at that last remark.

We finally get some more info on Devlin. Seems he really was local boy, but has recently returned with money (as evidenced by his renting three rooms at the inn). Maggie’s father also seemed rather fond of Devlin too, yet hasn’t mentioned the name is years.

Back at the house, Victoria and Carolyn are walking about the house. We learn about more about the Collins family (also Roger looks a bit like Isaac Collins, the founder of Collinsport and the family fortune), but while the girls talk, a door opens slightly…

Carolyn glibly suggests the wind opened it…despite it being inside.

Devlin and Joe continue their talk. Devlin seems to know a disturbing amount of info on Joe. He also offers Joe a large amount of money, in exchange for some information.

While Roger waits for Maggie’s father, Mr. Malloy of the Collins fishing fleet barges in. He is clearly agitated about Devlin’s return. Roger acts cool, but Malloy reminds Roger about ‘ten years ago’, and refers to Devlin as an ex-con.

Devlin continues his talk with Joe, mostly explaining how he got his money. Joe, flustered, refuses his offer. Malloy enters the inn and orders Joe home. Malloy begs Devlin to ‘let things go’, but Devlin refuses.

Back at the house, Victoria and Carolyn come back to Victoria’s room, where someone has been rifling through Victoria’s things. Carolyn only cryptically offers warning about locking the door and promises to see her in the morning.

So, is everyone in this town afflicted with a disease that prevents them from actually getting to the point? Carolyn warmly greets Victoria, then promptly tell her to flee, then welcomes her again. Malloy drops hints about Devlin’s past, but doesn’t say much more than him being an ex-con. Obviously if he spilled the entire story it would seem odd, as Roger clearly knows what Devlin did, but we the viewers do not.  

Questions raised: What happened ten years ago? Who is spying on Victoria?

An Open Letter to Frank Miller

by: Jesse Baruffi

Dear Frank,

Stop. Just stop, seriously. You used to write really awesome comics. Sure, some of them were kinda weird about gender issues, what with every grown woman being a nun or a whore and all, but despite that, the art and the soul was there, and there were some very noble ideals underneath the noirish skin.

But now...geez. It's like you watched Dave Sim's meltdown and thought, "I bet I could do that!" You've gone from a great writer with some eccentricities to a cranky, bigoted old man and a parody of your former self. I mean, the people who defend your more recent work pretty much have to say, "Oh, he's doing it as a joke." But you're not, are you?

At this point, you should probably retire. Let the good parts of your career eventually outshine The Spirit, Holy Terror, The Goddamn Batman, and all that is probably to come. But I suspect that won't happen. Any resistance to you now will just drive you further into certainty that you're right. And you'll wonder why all the ungrateful bastards turned on you, when in fact it was you who turned on them.

No, I'm not saying I'm going to boycott your work. A boycott implies that I might buy it otherwise. But to be honest, whatever absurd screeds you levy against the Occupy movement, you wear your madness on your sleeve, and every bit of it just shoves The Dark Knight Returns and Born Again and the first couple volumes of Sin City further back into the recesses of memory to be replaced by whatever it is you're saying now.

Look, I don't need to agree with everything a creator says, and they don't need to hug puppies and kittens. But seriously, if you can't be both a nice person and a talented creator, at least be one of them. That way, when you die, people will be able to say, "Though his work may have waned in later years, Miller remained a likeable and helpful figure in the comics community," or, "Though a man of controversial opinions, Miller's talent remained second-to-none." At the moment, you're working pretty hard on having neither.

In short, if you can do nothing else, leave me with my ability to enjoy your work from when it was good. The last thing I want to do is have to sell those enjoyable TPBs just because you couldn't stop talking about how much you hate Muslims or liberals.

Dark Shadows Episode Two

“Episode 2.” Dark Shadows. ABC. Various stations. 28 June 1966.

We open with Victoria inside the Collins estate. Elizabeth, while preparing tea, only drops hints about David, Roger’s son, and cryptically refers to the boy as unlike Victoria has ever met. We cut back to the Blue Whale (the local hangout from the previous episode), where Devlin and the PI (Wilbur Strike) are still talking.

We meet another member of the Collins clan. Carolyn Stoddard, Elizabeth’s daughter. She dances with several young man, much to the annoyance of her date, Joe Haskell.

Through Mr. Strike we learn that Joe Haskell is practically Carolyn’s husband, at least if Elizabeth has her say. A fight nearly breaks out between Haskell and a local youth, but Devlin steps in and stops it. He orders Joe to take Carolyn home, and then ask him to meet with him later, refusing to go into specifics.

Back at the house, Victoria tries to ferret out more information about her hiring, but Elizabeth is less than forth coming. Carolyn’s arrival takes the older woman away, leaving Victoria to settle into her room. A room that Elizabeth used to sleep in, a fact that heavily mentioned.

Carolyn and Elizabeth talk. There is tension, but neither side is truly upset with the other. Carolyn simply wishes to leave the oppressive house, while Elizabeth doesn’t want to be alone. Elizabeth cheers Carolyn up about the last part, suggesting Victoria is to serve another function besides nanny.

Victoria, meanwhile, has gone exploring the grounds. Standing on the cliffs overlooking the sea, she encounters Roger. The man seems charming, if a bit too forward. When told of Devlin’s presence in town, Roger flies into a fit and runs away. Victoria enters the house later as Elizabeth plays the piano. When Elizabeth collapses, Victoria runs off into the darkened house’s interior.

Well, so far the plot thickens a bit. We have a clearer idea on why Victoria was hired, although Elizabeth credits Roger with hiring Victoria, while Roger credits Elizabeth. Devlin sets things in motion with Joe, although if Strike’s info is so complete why doesn’t he just read the report instead of having it read to him in the middle of a bar? We also learn a bit about the background of the Collins family and fortune.

Questions raised: What exactly is the deal with David? What is Elizabeth hiding? What is Devlin’s deal?

Film flashback: Lady Terminator

Lady Terminator  (1988), dir. Jalil Jackson, 108 Sound Studio/Soraya Intercine Film PT  

Ludicrous; yeah, that’s about the only word that sums up this film. Any attempts at analysis are doomed from the start, but here’s a run down. Opening in the past, we see the Queen of the South Seas making love to a mustached man. The touching scene is interrupted when she somehow brutally murders the man via her vagina.

Another man arrives almost at once and makes love to the queen, he however survives. The Queen’s joy at his survival is short lived, as the man then demands (since they are married now somehow) that she stop killing men. He also pulls an eel out from between her thighs and turns it into a knife. The Queen, annoyed at this, leaves but not before swearing to come back and murder the man’s great granddaughter, leaving the man alive and presumably rich. The man is okay with this.

We jump to the present day. An anthropologist, not a lady she stresses, goes searching for the Queen of the South Seas. She finds her and gets possessed by her. Emerging naked from the shore, she kills two men via sex and steals their clothes. She takes over a hotel room (In the Philippines, it is considered good luck to have an extra room set aside for the Queen of the South Seas), then murders a security guard. She also takes the guard’s Uzi and apparently nine hundred million rounds of ammo. Why? Because the man’s great granddaughter is a singer who is giving a concert at local disco.

The possessed Queen shoots about five hundred people but misses the singer. This attracts the police and military, where the square-jawed American cop on the edge protects the singer and nobody else. He tries mind you, but he’s not very good at it.  

This is a film that almost defies a review. Whole scenes and dialogue are transplanted from James Cameron's earlier work, even when it makes no narrative sense. By the end of the movie, nearly every cop in the entire Philippines is dead and and so is almost every civilian. It gets so bad that our cop brings in some American buddies to help. Buddies armed with Panzers and mullets so magnificent I curse myself for not providing a picture. They are useless against the Queen, but the end comes from within for our titular slayer.      

“She mates…then she terminates”

Film flashback: Squirm

Squirm (1976), dir. Jeff Lieberman, American International Pictures

A thunderstorm ravages the small town of Fly Creek, located deep within the wilds of Georgia. Power lines are knocked down, roads flooded, and generally making everything a mess, including sending thousands of volts into the ground; an effect that seems to have stirred up the local worm population.

Into this mess walks Mick, literally, as the bus was unable to travel the flooded roads. Mick is in town to meet up Geri, a girl he met at an antique show some time ago. Geri’s sister Alma mocks her for her worry, while the girl’s mother Naomi slowly goes insane.

Finally making their way to town, Mick makes a big first impression of the other locals by ordering an egg cream (chocolate, milk, and soda water for those who don’t live in New York), but it seems something extra was added to his order: a giant worm.

The sheriff promptly straightens the mess, i.e. blames it all on Mick and threatens to lock him up. From there we met Roger, a local worm farmer who’s a bit off and has the hots for Geri. And then we spend a great deal of time padding. Bones are found, but the worms somehow hide the body and sheriff again refuses to believe Mick or Geri.

By the time we actually get to the worm uprising, far too much time has passed. The film goes in bits and spurts, but otherwise refuses to do anything. I would recommend only seeing this with Mike, Tom, and Crow. As a bonus, the MST3K episode has the short A Case of Spring Fever, which is far more disturbing than this film.

“This was the night of crawling terror!”

Dark Shadows recap/review 1

Having recently purchased a collection of Dark Shadow comics from the 1960’s, I’ve decided to take a critical eye towards the show that spawned it. The brainchild of producer Dan Curtis, the series made its debut in 1966. At first focusing on purely gothic standards, the series quickly embraced the supernatural with the introduction of vampire Barnabas Collins. That particular debut is still a way off, however, so let’s wind back the clock to the first episode.

“Episode 1.” Dark Shadows. ABC. Various stations. 27 June 1966.

We open with Victoria Winters onboard a train to the remote area of Collinsport, Maine. Through flashbacks we learn a little bit about her. To wit, she’s orphan from New York City and she is traveling to accept the job of governess to the Collins family. Also on board is a man named Burke Devlin, who stares intensely at everyone.

Getting off the train, Victoria goes through a greeting standard to most characters in a Universal horror film. She can find no taxi, and the locals do everything short of crossing themselves whenever she mentions the Collins family. Devlin is kind enough to give her a ride to the local inn, but he is rather insistent that she board the next train to New York. He refuses to say why, however, and grows angry at the innkeeper apparently recognizing him.

From there it’s more of the same. Victoria has dinner in the local diner, where the waitress Maggie Evens good naturally insults her, before pleading with her to leave town. Devlin, meanwhile, is meeting with a private eye at the local (and implied only) watering hole. He’s hired the man to gather information on the Collins family, and it’s through this we are given the run down. The family is old, rich, and extremely eccentric.

We are then introduced to two members of the Collins clan: Elizabeth Collins Stoddard and her brother Roger Collins. Elizabeth is the one who insists on a nanny for Roger’s son David, but Roger does everything short of mocking her to her face and decrying her ‘bringing in outsiders’. Roger seems to handle most of the money and the family’s business, while Elizabeth hasn’t left the sprawling Collins estate in over eighteen years.

We end with Victoria finally making her way to the dark old house and being welcomed inside by a grim Elizabeth.

As far as introductions go, you could do worse. Curtis does hit the viewer over the head with how the Collins family is hiding something, but the performances of the actors are muted. An effect which works, as if everyone chewed the scenery this would easily turn into a comedy. As it stands, and this might have been effective in 1966, we are shown a creepy house and a few slightly less creepy interiors. We are told, however, of mysterious and strange goings-on. Although if the residents don’t want people to investigate, why do they constantly bring up staying away from various points, then refuse to explain why they brought it up in the first place?

Questions raised: Why exactly is Victoria hired? Who is Devlin and does he actually hail from Collinsport?

Film flashback: Zombie

Zombie (1979), dir. Lucio Fulci, Variety Film Production

A backlit man shoots a bound figure in the head. A derelict boat sails into New York City. The harbor patrol, upon reaching it, makes a grisly discovery. The ship is abandoned and rotting with spoiled food and severed limbs. One officer makes a horrific discovery in the form of a large undead man who promptly kills the officer. After the other policeman shoots the shambling creature over the side, a formal investigation gets underway.

The daughter of the boat’s owner, Anne (Tisa Farrow) is called in. Along with a reporter (Ian McCulloch), Anne goes to the tropical island of Matool to try and discover her father’s fate. With a vacationing couple in tow, the group goes to find the island. Susan, the girlfriend of Brian (ship’s captain) decides to take some underwater shots, but while scuba diving, encounters a zombie. Saved by a shark, the group is decidedly unnerved when they arrive at the island. Meeting Dr. Menard (Richard Johnson), they are told of the dead coming back to life. Things get worse from there.

Better known as Zombi 2, Zombi or even Zombie Flesh Eaters, this 1979 film was made most infamous for being put on the ‘Video Nasty’ list, and for good reason. The most gruesome shot involves the doctor’s wife as her eye is slowly pierced by a wood shard. There doesn’t seem to be any real reason for the dead coming back to life, although voodoo is mentioned a few times.

Compare to Fulci’s later work, this film is almost a marvel in self-restraint. At first a rip off of Dawn of the Dead, Fulci only explains so much and leaves the rest to the viewer. For this kind of story, it works. We know as much as the characters, who more or less behave realistically even when they fail spot check after spot check.  

“We are going to eat you!”