Salutations, traveler of The Internets! Welcome to William's Bloody Hell, so named after our founder, Sir Bloody William.
He is seen in the likeness above in a rare, 19th century woodcut. This
image was rumoured to have been
commissioned after a bout of unpleasantness
in the White Chapel district of London. Do enjoy your stay and peruse our many, varied offerings, much of which cannot be found elsewhere!
:: Dark Shadows: The Revival ::
by William the Bloody
In 1990, television decided to reinvent a the supernatural soap opera-esque television series Dark Shadows and refer to it as The Revival. In this series we follow Victoria Winters who has just been hired to serve as a nanny and tutor for the ridiculously wealthy and historic Collins family. The Collinses have lived in their manor since the revolutionary war and the neighboring town is named after their industrious family and they are well respected in the region. However on the same day that Victoria begins her new career, the Collins incompetent driver, Willy, decides its time he moved up in the world and starts snooping around the property in order to find the legendary Collins treasure which was rumoured to have been stashed on the manor grounds 200 years ago. Willy finds the secret room alright, but instead of treasure he finds a locked coffin... with someone inside it! Enter Barnabus Collins 200 year old vampire. Barnabus feeds off Willy, but does not kill him, instead uses him as a willing servant to do his errands during daylight hours. Barnabus presents himself to the current Collinses and proclaims that he's their cousin from England and would like to restore one of the old houses on the property to live in. The resident Collinses do not object, in fact the matriarch is all too pleased to meet an old relative who knows so much about the family history. Barnabus takes an instant liking to Victoria who so perfectly resembles a woman he used to love back when he was alive that she could indeed be her reincarnated. Victoria is so caught up in this romantic idea of how Barnabus "looks like" his ancestor of the same name and now she appears as his old betrothed and how it must be fate for them to have met, that she fails to recognize all of the warning signs of his vampire state. Will Barnabus be able to control his unearthly urges or will history's course play out as it did centuries ago and doom him and Victoria to the same bloody fate?
The Good: I was a bit too young to have gotten into this show when it originally aired, so I was curious when it finally became available to watch on DVD. The series had a good premise: 200 year old vampire returns to his ancestral home claiming to be a descendant of the family, falls for the spitting image of his old fiancée, but is conflicted between vampirism and love. Sounds intriguing, doesn't it? I absolutely loved all of the sets in and around the Collins home. Everything was kept as it was for the most part of 200 years, so we're talking beautiful old world woodwork, archways, paintings and statues, etc. I'm a definite fan of the architecture of this show. They also had some pretty good vampire effects throughout. There are parts where we literally see Barnabus grow fangs and there was this really cool effect with a spectre coming out of the hearth fire that was particularly well done (especially for the time). I liked how the show touched on the supernatural in general and not just vampires. Voodoo and witch craft come into play as well as ghosts, psychics, possession, Ouija boards and séances.
The Bad: The acting was rather... unfortunate. Victoria was just so overly dramatic and Barnabus was really, really over the top. Everywhere everyone is giving these hard, pointed, really expressive looks at nothing. Two people will have an argument, one will exit the room and the camera lingers on the one still there who has their brow all furrowed and looking quite intently at absolutely nothing, just slightly camera right. I've never seen so many meaningful looks that mean nothing all in one place in my life. The only character with any real depth is Willy, the bumbling chauffer-turned-Barnabus's-personal-valet. Everyone else has relationships that are pretty damn vague. I mean, Victoria is meant to be tutoring the little boy David Collins, but we don't even know which of the adult Collinses are his parents, since they're one of those wealthy extended family all stays in one big house sorts. There's the old lady, two women, a man and little David and I wasn't sure if the man was married to one of the women, or if they were all siblings, or cousins, or what exactly. It all gets filled in for you later on, but I feel that should have been cleared up in the first few episodes. They also really lay on with the clichés in this show. Just about every night scene has fog or mist of some sort as well as canine howling somewhere in the distance. Maybe once or twice, but spooky howling EVERY SINGLE night?? Come on now. Oh and half of the night scenes were clearly filmed during the day. It's really quite obvious. They didn't even try to use a dark lens. For shame.
Overall, this series was a mixed bag. It sounds good and has some good ideas, but they aren't quite executed as well as they could have been. I enjoyed watching it, but only in a not taking it seriously and making fun of it sort of way. Good for a laugh, but not good for serious vampire drama. It's no surprise that it did not last past one season.
Campy viewing experience: A-
Serious vampire drama: C+
