MONSTER SHOP BULLETIN: MUNSTERS REBOOT PILOT TO BE AIRED AS HALLOWEEN SPECIAL THIS FRIDAY, OCTOBER 27TH By John Rose

The Mad Doctor

In a previous post we mentioned that a dramatic-themed, darker reboot of The Munsters, titled Mockingbird Lane, was being developed at NBC, to be headed by Bryan Fuller of Pushing Daisies fame.  Now, 2 years and 10 million dollars of development later, NBC is reportedly unhappy with the final product, but is currently trying to save face by airing the now-finished Mockingbird Lane pilot as a Halloween special.

The new family on the block:  Creepy, spooky, mysterious, kooky... and really dark

The cast of Mockingbird Lane features Jerry O'Connell as Herman, Portia de Rossi as Lily, Eddie Izzard as Grandpa, Mason Cook as Eddie and Charity Wakefield as Marilyn.  When a "baby bear attack" signals the onset of werewolf puberty for Eddie, the Munster family quickly relocates to the titular Mockingbird Lane, in a house deemed the "Hobo Murder House" by the locals, due to the fact that a serial killer who once murdered hobos on a regular basis lived there.  We could go on about what else is to happen, but here's NBC's official description for the show:

Buying a house these days is a nightmare, so Herman and Lily are shocked that no one scooped up the rambling Victorian mansion at 1313 Mockingbird Lane that was the site of a series of grisly hobo murders. Settling into their new place, they’re quickly onto the mission at hand: to gently ease Eddie into the reality of his werewolf adolescence. But it’s not always so easy to accept that your child is a little “different” from the rest of the kids. Meanwhile, Herman, who works as a funeral director, is suffering from a heart condition. Since he’s made up mostly of spare parts, he knew his makeshift heart would eventually give out. No worries though, because Grandpa, who is pretty good at procuring body parts, is on the case. All Herman cares about is finding a new heart with the same capacity to love Lily as much as he has for so many decades.

As can be seen, Fuller definitely had his own plans to remake the goofy monster clan into something more serious-minded and scarier than the usual round of monster puns.  Though one review of the pilot is already unimpressed with ML, we at the Monster Shop have chosen to remain neutral on this pilot until we have actually seen the final product (at which time we will provide a full review), but to our eyes, the visuals (check out our link below to see NBC's official preview) seem more drawn from the Addamses than the Munsters.  Stay tuned, same bat time, same bat channel...

Mockingbird Lane is due to air this Friday, October 27th, at 8 PM (7 PM Central). Check your local listings for time.  More information can be found here.

TALES FROM THE MONSTER SHOP: FREAKY MONSTERS MAGAZINE'S RAY FERRY AND CONNIE BEAN By The MonsterGrrls

The Grrls

Hello, everybody!  This is Frankie Franken and the MonsterGrrls reporting for Tales From The Monster Shop, and today we have something really cool--an interview with Ray Ferry and Connie Bean, the people behind the fabulous fright-mag Freaky Monsters Magazine!

Back in 1990, Ray Ferry was behind the rebirth of the much-loved Famous Monsters Of Filmland, but since then he's moved on to publish his own classic-horror magazine, Freaky Monsters, a tribute to the Golden Age of Hollywood Horror.  With fun-to-read articles and stunningly beautiful black-and white photographs of the old masters of horror, Freaky Monsters is shaping up to be a classic in its own right.  We all sat down to chat with Mr. Ferry and his lovely fiend Miss Connie Bean, who manages the ongoing workings of Freaky Monsters.

Frankie: Hello there, and thanks for letting us interview you!  Can you tell us a little bit about yourselves and your magazine?

The Master Of Freaky Castle

 Ray Ferry: Hi, MonsterGrrls!  Sorry it took so long to get this finished but you know, we are so busy here at the Freaky Castle all the time, it takes a while to get things together to do something fun like, an interview!

Freaky After Midnight: Their first issue

I'm the editor and publisher of Freaky Monsters Magazine, which I started in 2010 after having been the editor, publisher and trademark owner of Famous Monsters Of Filmland for 18 years, from 1990 when I revived the title until 2008 when circumstances beyond my control forced a change in title ownership.

The Beautiful Queen Of Fiends

Connie Bean:  I guess I am the Freaky Queen!  I am the general manager of Filmland Classics.  I was formerly in entertainment, real estate and marketing, but not all at the same time.  I came into this classic horror business about 11 years ago now when I first met Ray... wow, what a long time it seems!

Bethany Ruthven: Speaking as monsters ourselves, we find your magazine to be the best of its kind.  (Other Grrls nod in agreement)  But it must be said: there's a lot of information available on classic horror, both in print and on the Web.  What does Freaky Monsters hope to bring to the table?

Ray Ferry: I've been a fan of classic horror films since 1958.  My interests were spawned both from a fascination with film and the amazing clarity and depth of the publicity photographs that were released by the studios in the 1930s and '40s to promote the films.  My love and appreciation of that art still looms large and I edit Freaky Monsters to share those fangtastic images with our readers.  Certainly there is no shortage of "coverage" of the old films out there but often what I read from other sources is inaccurate and the images one sees in most magazines and especially on the internet are poor quality low resolution JPEGs that hardly do justice to the subject.  At the same time, I see a strange yet wondrous parallel universe in the classic films and they are a lot of fun.  Freaky Monsters is a world where its okay to be an outcast.  It's more than a magazine... it's a philosophy.  Many readers tell me they read and re-read each issue several times and never tire of it.  With each reading they discover something new. We welcome true-grue fans of all ages.  There's a seat at our table for everyone who appreciates the classics or wants to learn about them.

Connie Bean:  I think Freaky Monsters brings good factual information to the readers.  I help as much as I can with research.  If I can't verify it to be true, then we keep looking to find out what the truth is.  I love to search for new information and am pretty proud of the things we have been able to accomplish.  We bring the Fun back to Classic Horror, Sci-Fi and Fantasy!  That's what we are all about, FREAKY FUN!  We want our readers to show the magazines to their kids and grand kids and then watch the old films and TV shows with them.  We are all about family!  Ray and I both believe that what this world needs right now is a focus on the simpler times.  The times when families talked at the dinner table and focused on each other, not the Internet and their I phones!  We hope that Freaky Monsters opens a new world to some youngsters and takes their parents and grandparents back in time when they had no mortgage and no drama!

Bethany: So a more journalistic approach, backed up with true facts and the best photographs available.  Very commendable.  Full marks to you!

Punkin Nightshade:  Our Mad Doctor's always watchin a lot of horror pictures back at the Monster Shop, so I want to ask this next'un.  What's you folks' opinion of classic horror upside modern horror?  Do you think modern horror pictures is takin themselves too seriously?

Any resemblance to movie investors is just coincidence

Ray Ferry:  I don't know that they take themselves too seriously.  Rather, I think they are made for the express purpose of feeding their investors.  Let me explain:  In its heyday, cinema was an extension of the theater.  Films were the poor man's Broadway.  A single performance could be crafted and mass marketed to much greater profit than live performances.  The studios had to be creative to compete for the audiences' dollar and there was a built-in code that dictated how far the envelope could be pushed before a film was "unacceptable" as entertainment.  Certainly the studios that put out "horror" films were trying to "shock" their audience but with few exceptions the films are "boogeyman" stories... they are probably better described as "thrillers" or "chillers".  The movies they make today are little more than vehicles for merchandising.  If you take a close look at the film industry today you'll see that they don't make movies anymore.  They make thrill rides.  They get the audience in, take them on a wild ride, assault their senses, sell them some popcorn and soda and get them out in 2 hours so they can get the next herd in.  The films don't need to make a profit.  The real money is in the merchandising tie-ins and overseas run.   Because our society has shrugged off nearly every trace of moral consciousness and little is "taboo", today's "horror" films focus on depicting as much violence, gore and visual shock value as they can dream up.  The content is a reflection of our need for bigger and bigger "fixes" to get us to notice or react. 

Connie Bean:  I personally haven't found many of the modern films interesting or fun and really don't care to talk about them or study them.  They just aren't worth the effort to me.  They are too dramatic and edgy and I don't think they are good for our young people.  They also focus too much on the CGI effects they can get and not on the story lines and moral issues that the old films had.   I really just don't like them.  I want to be entertained, not feel trapped in my own skin!

Harriet Von Lupin:  So what's you guys' favorite horror film?

Beautiful monstress

Ray Ferry:  I have several but James Whale's Bride Of Frankenstein, Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man and Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein are my favorites in the horror genre. There's an atmos-fear in each of them that is evocative.

Connie Bean: I guess my favorite would be Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein.  I love the little bit of comedy thrown in with the horror.  I really don't get into the super-serious side of anything.

Frankie:  How did you two become fans of horror movies?  What's your earliest experiences with them?

Ray Ferry:  I started watching them on TV when the Shock package was first aired back in 1958.  I recall that a few years later Castle Films released a few titles in 50 foot 8mm home movie versions and I managed to get a copy of Bride Of Frankenstein.  I ran that film over and over again and studied the lighting, the staging, the makeup because I found it fascinating.  I learned at a very young age how to splice film because one evening I was watching BOF and I put the old Bell and Howell projector in "frame hold" mode then walked up to the screen to study a particular frame.  Imagine my shock when after about a minute the heat from the projector lamp burned up the film and I watched in horror as the frame bubbled, browned and burned up!  Later I was able to record part of the sound from a TV airing of BOF on my father's Wollansack reel-to-reel tape recorder and jury-rigged a belt system to synchronize the sound to the scenes that were in the Castle Film copy I had.  Unfortunately I wrecked both the projector and the recorder in the process.  There was a definite sense of wonder and appreciation of cinema in those days before the VCR and today's digital technology.   It may seem great to have favorite films at your fingertips but with that comes a loss of anticipation and uniqueness.  Too much of anything devalues its worth.

Whole lotta woman

Connie Bean:  I guess the first one I remember would have been when I was about 5 or so.  My parents wouldn't let me see horror films but I had an aunt and uncle that I used to spend the night with, often on the weekends, and we would stay up and watch movies.  I  remember watching Attack of the 50 Foot Woman and spending the next few hours looking out the window to make sure she wasn't coming down the street when I wasn't paying attention!  I loved that movie!  I was also afraid to go to the drive-in one night a few weeks later with my aunt and uncle because I was afraid that woman would come and grab the car!  Those were the days!

Harriet:  Wish we had a drive-in.  There's nothing like food out in the open air.  (slurps)

Frankie:  In your opinions, what can be done to make horror films better these days?

Ray Ferry:  Probably nothing.  The public has "progressed" to the point that's its highly unlikely a modern audience, especially kids, wouldn't be bored with a "horror" film of the old school.  The whole movie-going experience has changed.  The grandious movie palaces of old are gone, the "play bill" of an A film, a B film, a newsreel, cartoons and 2-reeler comedy that would fill an afternoon at the local "Bijou" have been replaced by sterile boxes in multiplexes where you sit through 15 or 20 minutes of commercials followed by a 2-hour feature and then get shuffled off to the food court or parking lot.  People today have the attention span of a fly.  There's just too much thrown at them.  That's why the films are such an assault on the senses.  They have to be.  Granted, there have been a few films that attempt to tell intelligent stories and emulate what cinema used to be but they are few and far between and usually not in the "horror" vein.  For all that technology has advanced, I'd prefer to see the classics restored, digitally clean up the soundtracks and re-release them as they were meant to be seen.

Connie Bean: Go back to basics and tell a story instead of worrying so much about the special effects.  It's just too much and it's gone too far.  Stop remaking the things that are classics because they are "classy"... yes, some of the old stuff is a little hokey, but better hokey than absurd and horrifying.  You don't need to "kill" the audience to make a point, just make the point without all the excess!  Horror doesn't have to be horrific.  We have enough horrific in our everyday lives and our children watch too much of that on the news, Internet and TV.  Let's get back to fun horror; that kind that scares you with what is not seen!

Bethany:  I'm more of a reader than a movie viewer, so I want to ask this: how do you feel about the Twilight series and other types of horror books written for young people?

Ray Ferry: I don't follow them so I can't comment.  But I feel a certain alarm that vampirism is often the focus of these series.  The need to associate one's self with cults that embrace death is disturbing especially since it's young people that are the main followers.  In the case of a story like the original Dracula, the vampire is a lost soul.  Its need to consume human blood is a curse, not a delicacy.  It is a foul thing that destroys life and is defiant of God.  But contemporary depictions have elevated it to "rock star" status as being powerful, invulnerable and indominable.  It is more a reflection of today's obsession with material wealth and power than good vs. evil.  The vampire has become the new "gangster."

"How To Join A Death Cult Without Really Trying"

Connie Bean: To be fair, I haven't read or seen them.  I don't have time to read much of anything but Freaky Monsters and the projects we work on.  I will occasionally take the time to read about them, and I am just not impressed enough to bother with it.  I just really stick with the classic horror.  I don't want to feel bludgeoned by a book, TV show or movie--I want to be scared but not mentally exhausted!

Bethany: Well, for my own part, I am a vampire, but I'm strictly on the bottle--AB-negative, for preference.  And I'm not a death cult member.  I was asked to be Blood Queen of the Vengeful Temple Of Magog once, but I refused on moral grounds.

Punkin: What you mean?

Bethany: I wasn't joining any cult that would have me as a member.
 

Frankie:  Freaky Monsters is (as of now) on its eleventh issue.  What are your plans for the future of Freaky Monsters?

For classic horror fans, a sanctuary

Ray Ferry:  We'll keep publishing it as long as our readers and fans want it.  For as much material as is available on the internet, I still have a lot of stills from classic films that are quite rare and that even some diehard fans probably haven't seen.  But even with the most popular photos, Freaky Monsters is aimed at casual fans and especially kids who are not familiar with the films.  My main focus is in producing the highest quality photo magazine on the market.  I'm often criticized by the horror "know-it-alls" for not filling the magazine with in-depth investigative articles but they don't get it -- I don't publish Freaky Monsters for them.  I publish it for the youngsters and the young at heart.  If someone wants to dig down into the muck and learn all the "secrets" about a particular actor or film, there are countless books out there to read.  We often hear from readers who write to say a photo or article they saw in Freaky Monsters made them go out and get a copy of the film to watch it.  You'd be amazed at how many fans haven't seen many popular old films.

Something for every fiend

But the biggest compliment I get is from older fans when they write to say "I pick up a copy of Freaky Monsters and lose myself in it.  For a few hours, I'm 10 years old again.  I'm back in a time when life was simple.  No mortgage, no job, no kids, no worries.  And for that, I thank you."  We also provide a bonding experience for parents and grandparents to share a spooky old movie with their kids and generally the kids, especially the really young ones, enjoy the magazine and the films as much as we did way back when.  Parents don't have to worry about leaving a copy of Freaky Monsters on the table because it's 100% kid-friendly.  Maybe I'm stuck in the old days but I think we provide a much-needed refuge from the high tech world.  Like all great art, if film isn't appreciated in its original form it will become lost.  Today we have the technology to sculpt a better and more accurate David, we could create an enhanced and spectacular digital projection on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel that would shame Michelangelo's time-worn effort. We could restock the Louvre with digitally magnificent remakes of every painting that hangs there.  But because we can, should we?

Films are no less an art form than painting or sculpture or literature or architecture yet they are constantly being remade.  Leave the classics alone.  Part of their charm is that they are a reflection of when they were made.  They reflect who we were, what we felt, what was important, how we laughed and they should be celebrated and studied in that vein as much as any other art form.  Unfortunately there is little profit for today's investors in re releasing or preserving classic films.  But, at least in the domain of classic monsters, they are safe from extinction and are celebrated for just what they are in the pages of Freaky Monsters.  As we say in Transylvania: "There's no ghoul like an old ghoul!"

Connie Bean:  We will keep going and going and going... I hear the drumming of that little Beaster Bunny now!  As long as someone has an interest in reading our magazines, we will keep publishing.  We love our Freaky Monsters! 

Ray Ferry & Connie Bean: Monster fans united

And that's our interview!  Freaky Monsters is available wherever fine classic horror mags are sold, or simply go to their website and buy direct!  (And tell 'em the MonsterGrrls sent you!)  We really appreciate their taking the time to talk to us, and if you're looking for a cool horror mag to read, pick up an issue of Freaky Monsters today!

We'll be back soon with more cool Tales From The Monster Shop!

Sincerely,
Francesca "Frankie" Franken,
Bethany Ruthven,
Petronella "Punkin" Nightshade
and Harriet Von Lupin,

The MONSTERGRRLS!!
 

WRITERS ON THE STORM: MARTIN POWELL AND THE HALLOWEEN LEGION By Punkin Nightshade

Well, hey there!  This here is Petronella Nightshade, what am Punkin, and today I am doin another of them Writers On The Storm interviews.  Today I am speakin to a feller named Mr. Martin Powell, who has done wrote a book about somethin that I bet ain't nobody else ever thought of: Halloween superheroes.  I am sure excited about this, cause my feller Stuart is collectin all kinds of comic books and such, and all of them got superheroes in them, and I allowed one day as to how there ought to be some superheroes what was like Halloween folk and such, and I swan if it ain't here they come.  Mr. Powell's book is called The Halloween Legion, and he will soon be havin a comic book out what's got them in it, but this one here what's he made is all writin with some pictures.  So we got us one of this here book and done passed it around and it is a crackerjack, I am tellin you, so natural we all decided we had to talk to Mr. Powell.  So the rest of this here is me and Mr. Powell talkin. 


Welcome to the Monster Shop, sir! Can you tell us about yourself and what you do?

I make stuff up and write it down so, hopefully, folks will read it. All kinds of stuff. Prose, comics, children’s books, scientific and educational material, screenplays – I’ve pretty much had my hand in all of it for the past twenty-five years or so.

You done wrote a book called THE HALLOWEEN LEGION. What's this here about, and how'd you get started on it?

Well, The Halloween Legion are the World's Weirdest Heroes, a group of characters that I originally dreamed up way back in my high school days. One particularly mind-numbing afternoon in class, I started sketching these figures in my notebook: a Skeleton, Witch, Devil, Ghost, and a Black Cat, the iconic archetypes of Halloween. When I first drew them all together, as a group, I immediately began imagining a whole series of adventures for them. They’ve been lurking and evolving in my subconscious until recently, patiently waiting for their chance to be born. I’m actually very glad that I waited this long. I don’t think I would have been quite prepared for them before now. Autumn is my favorite time of year, and Halloween in particular, and I wanted to capture that feeling of magic and mystery, the sort of thrill you get as a kid when you first notice the orange, red, and yellow leaves following you down the street. It’s too brief a season, and I’ve always wanted it to go on forever. The Halloween Legion is my way of keeping the autumn season with me all year long.

And a right smart of a book it is, too!  But I heard you is into old pulp heroes and such. What's some of your favorite ones?

I became acquainted with the pulps when I was about twelve years old, as a friend introduced me to the Doc Savage paperback series. Next time I was at the store I bought one, read it, and was immediately addicted. I still am. I discovered Tarzan and the many other creations of Edgar Rice Burroughs around this same time and I haven’t been the same since. Starting in 2006, I’ve been fortunate enough to regularly write the original pulp hero The Spider, both in comics and prose, and I’m also currently composing Tarzan At The Earth's Core as a graphic novel, as well several other licensed Burroughs properties, which will be published by Sequential Pulp Comics, a new imprint of Dark Horse Comics. So, I’m definitely living the dream.

So you is up to a lot of didoes, I see, and it is always good to keep busy.  But what was it inspired you to start writin books?

It was a very deliberate decision. I've wanted to tell stories since I was a kid, and I started writing and drawing my own books when I was six years old. I've had other interesting jobs from time to time, from an educator in the paleontology gallery of a museum, to acting on stage and working as an extra in film, as an illustrator, and even a short stint as a stage magician. Writing fiction has always been the most driving creative force in my life, and I always kept coming back to it. I feel very lucky to be a professional writer.

Well, everyone should do what they is good at.  What is your future plans for the Halloween Legion? Are you doin some other writins of interest?

I have lots of plans. I’m currently producing a Halloween Legion comic book/graphic novel, illustrated by Thomas Boatwright as well as a brand new prose novel for Wildcat Books. I’d also love to do HL coloring books, animation, action figures, lunch boxes, t-shirts, Halloween masks, radio shows, newspaper comic strips, feature films, and even a gentler picture book version for younger kids, too. I’m aiming pretty high, I know, but our dreams should always be bigger than life. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Since you is obvious likin Halloween, what was your best Halloween ever?

Last Halloween was the best ever. But I know the next one will top it. And so on. We should always strive to make our best memories today.

Yessir!  I got one more question: What kind of advice would you give to someone else who was writin somethin?

The best advice I can give new writers is simply to write. Write as much and as often as you can. Try to write a short story per week, if possible. Don’t be so concerned about style or even quality at first. Just write in a way that feels natural to you. That’s the only way to hone your craft and develop your own unique voice. Then, at the end of the year, you will have written over fifty stories and at least a few of them will be pretty special. Also, turn off the TV and the computer games and read. Read a lot. Short stories, novels, comics, everything. And not just modern stuff. Read Poe, Shirley Jackson, O. Henry, H.G. Wells, and Edgar Rice Burroughs. These are master story-tellers, who practically invented the specific genres that have become so popular today. Modern writers would be nothing without these illustrious trailblazers, whether they admit it or not.

Now that there is right smart advice.  Mr. Powell's The Halloween Legion can be found out to that Amazon.com in both a book and a Kindle e-book, and I am here to say that you should get you a copy right quick, even though it ain't Halloween right now.  I hope you will visit Mr. Powell here on the Internet gadget and keep up with his doins, cause he is writin some good stuff what's fine for a summer read.  I shall be goin here now, but be sure to come on back because it is always one thing and then another here to the Monster Shop and it is anyone's guess whatever next.  Blessings be on you all!

Sincerely,
Petronella "Punkin" Nightshade

PEERING INTO DARK SHADOWS By John Rose

Mad Doctor

Mad Doctor's Note: Warning--many spoilers await.  You may want to read this after seeing the movie.  If you already have, read on.

So I'm reminded of the phrase, "It's only a movie."

We used to say that, once upon a time, when we were seated in the theatre watching a movie and they were about to do a reveal on the Big Scary Monster of the piece, or the hero was in dire straits, or something was coming up behind that particular scene's victim and was about to take them out.  In the Technological Age, we don't say that anymore because these days we're All Connected and such, and we blog about Things and read reviews and make decisions and generally Act Like Adults about things that used to thrill and terrify us.  But the Child Inside still remembers how we used to feel, sitting there in dark shadows watching flickering pictures on a screen, and the thrills we got and that wonderful feeling of being a part of something, of personal enjoyment, of being all connected.  The Technological Age, for all of its connectedness and innovations, has failed to properly capture this feeling for us, and because of this we demand much, much more accountability from our entertainment than we used to.

The poster

So with that, I recently went to see the new film Dark Shadows, starring Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Helena Bonham Carter, Bella Heathcote and Eva Green, directed by Tim Burton.  And I liked it.  I didn't loooove it, I didn't think it was The Greatest Thing Ever, and I didn't think it was as good or better than the original.  I just liked it, and I'll get it when it comes out on DVD, because I liked it that much.  And here's why.

Barnabas The First (Jonathan Frid)

Dark Shadows is, of course, based on the 1966-71 soap opera which related the adventures of a remorseful vampire named Barnabas Collins and his human family, scions of the small Maine community of Collinwood.  Upon Barnabas's first appearance a year into DS's run, the show immediately garnered a huge fanbase that continues to this day, and fostered two feature films in 1970 and '71 and a short-lived TV revival during the '90's.  Dark Shadows is regarded as an ahead-of-its-time groundbreaker because of its supernatural storylines featuring vampires, werewolves, witches, ghosts, extradimensional creatures and time travel, and its influence upon many shows that came after it (including Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel, True Blood, and The Vampire Diaries) is still wide-reaching.

"Are they kidding?"

When word got out that Tim Burton and Johnny Depp (who are both DS fans of long-standing) had plans to do a big-budget feature film of Dark Shadows, the response was expectant and hopeful.  Upon release of the film trailer, many DS fans were immediately outraged over the rather jokey scenes, the 1970's period setting, and Depp's portrayal of Barnabas Collins (whose original portrayer, Jonathan Frid, died in April of this year).  Much of the genre film fan community had disparaging remarks about Burton's DS anyway, due to it seemingly being yet another in a long line of ham-fisted Hollywood remakes designed to drag in viewers and make huge amounts of money while trampling all over fond memories of a beloved fan experience.

For my part, while I love Dark Shadows and always have, I cannot call myself a fan in the same spirit that the film's decriers do.  Dark Shadows achieved legendary status for me due to my not having ever seen it in my youth, but constantly hearing about it from older family members who had seen some of the show's original run.  Ye Reviewer is currently enjoying the series through Netflix, and I can say without reservation that despite it falling victim to the usual disliked soap-opera conventions, it is every bit worth watching and deserving of its legendary status.

At this point, some people will be saying "yeah, well, when your favorite thing gets remade into a big crappy movie, you'll change your tune."  For me, that has already happened.  Saw Scooby-Doo; hated it, but the sequel got it right.  Saw Star Trek; didn't exactly dislike it, but the Star Trek Universe represented there seemed mighty homogenized compared to the original series, and the whole timeline-reboot sequence was obviously shoehorned in because the writers ran out of plot.  Still refuse, to this day, to watch Gus Van Sant's remake of Psycho, and if I ever meet the guy I'm probably going to jail.  So I do understand your pain and what you are talking about.

"Okay, people, hear me out..."

But the thing is that Burton's version of Dark Shadows, while hardly perfect for either DS fans or fans of Tim Burton's earlier movies, is not that bad.  For starters, it is neither a remake or a retelling of the original story but more of a revision, and revisions work differently from remakes.  If you have never seen Dark Shadows, you might consider this a Second Draft of Dark Shadows; if you're a huge fan, you're going to dislike some or all of this film.  But it is neither a real remake (in the Hollywood sense) or completely awful, and like the original show, it tends to be its own thing.

Much of the original DS backstory is told in the first few minutes of the movie, which shows the Collins family arriving from England in 1760 and establishing themselves as founders and favorite sons of Collinsport, Maine.  The eldest son, Barnabas (Depp), completes the building of his family's palatial estate of Collinwood and becomes something of a playboy, getting caught in a love triangle between housemaid Angelique Bouchard (Green) and his true love, Josette DuPres (Heathcote).  Unfortunately, Angelique proves to be a witch, and Barnabas's refusal of her love dooms the Collins family and Josette.  Angelique casts a spell that kills Barnabas's parents, curses the Collins family and sends Josette over the cliffs at Widow's Hill, then curses Barnabas as a vampire.  She then turns the townsfolk of Collinsport against Barnabas, who bury him in a chained coffin in the woods.

Creepy, spooky, mysterious, dysfunctional: the Collins family

Two hundred years later, in 1972, both Collinwood and the Collins family, consisting of iron-handed matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Pfeiffer), ne'er-do-well brother Roger Collins (Jonny Lee Miller), rebellious daughter Carolyn Stoddard (Grace Chloe Moretz), Roger's troubled, ghost-obsessed son David (Gulliver McGrath), live-in psychiatrist Dr. Julia Hoffman (Bonham-Carter), and drunken houseservant Willie Loomis (Jackie Earle Haley) are in disarray, while Angelique has survived through the centuries to become the town's favorite daughter and build a profitable canning business that has all but destroyed the Collins fortune.  Into this stew of dysfunction and secrets enter two visitors: lost soul Victoria Winters (Heathcote) who becomes a governess to David and is hiding some secrets of her own, and Barnabas Collins, whose reappearance is foretold in a ghostly visit by Josette to Winters.  When Barnabas's coffin is rediscovered and opened by luckless construction workers, he quickly treks to the ruined Collinwood, revealing his secret to Elizabeth and showing her the lost treasures of Collinwood.  Barnabas ingratiates himself into the family, helping to rebuild its fortune and fishing business, attempting to cure his vampirism with Dr. Hoffman, and kindling a relationship with Winters, who appears to be the reincarnation of Josette.  Angelique re-enters his new life as well, seducing Barnabas and demanding that he return her love.  Barnabas refuses, and the film soon escalates into a war for control of Collinsport as Barnabas fights to save his family from Angelique's curse.

"No Happy Meal toys, eh?  That's regrettable..."

So that's the plot, and here's the skinny:  By virtue of being a feature film, the story told here will be vastly different from the original show.  Soap operas, due to appearing daily, are episodic and told over quite long periods of time, while a feature film has two hours or less to set up, tell and resolve its story.  Also, Burton is a dedicated DS fan (as opposed to some other director who would have been merely attached to the movie), and his love for the series is evident and obvious throughout the film.  Johnny Depp's performance as Barnabas, while containing the now-standard Quirky Detachment that is expected from him, maintains the melodramatic sincerity and histrionic menace that were part of Frid's characterization while fully exploiting the fish-out-of-water status that a vampire from another era would have in 1972.  And the film does feature enough scariness to illustrate that demographics were part of the studio's targeting in creating the trailer.  While there are plenty of jokes and humor, those scenes from the trailer are not all you see, and the resurrection of Barnabas (which features the most backhanded product placement I've ever seen in a film) and his return to Collinwood is both funny and a little sad at the same time.

"I am Collins... hear me roar."

"Hey, can you blame me?  Vampires are cool."

The supporting cast, while of course subject to comparisons to the original characters, illustrate that they are as much lost souls as Barnabas in this film.  Michelle Pfeiffer's Elizabeth is dignified and strong-willed, just as Joan Bennett's performance was in the original.  Miller's Roger Collins fares badly, as the original Roger was a stuffed shirt who was nevertheless loyal to Elizabeth, but here Roger is a sleaze who selfishly chooses a life away from Collinwood over his family and son when Barnabas threatens to reveal his attempts to find the Collinwood treasures.  McGrath's David, while not as precocious as the original, is key to the survival of the family during Angelique's endgame.  Cast members who suffer the worst from comparisons to the originals are Bonham-Carter's Hoffman, Moretz's Carolyn and Haley's Willie Loomis.  Loomis and Hoffman were important supporting players in the original series, but here neither are given quite enough to do.  Loomis is relegated to loopy Renfield-esque slapstick as Barnabas's dogsbody, and the relationship dynamic between Barnabas and Hoffman (a key series element) is given short shrift in the film.  However, it does continue the theme of lost souls with Julia's treatment and subsequent betrayal (she gives Barnabas blood transfusions in an attempt to cure his vampirism, but steals his original blood to turn herself into a vampire and be eternally young).  Moretz's Carolyn appears to be the standard surly teenager, but toward the end we discover that the Collins curse has touched her as well: she is really a werewolf.  It would have been better if a few more clues to this had been provided through the film, rather than springing it at the end.  If Burton's Dark Shadows is really guilty of anything, it is that it tries to please original DS fans by doing too much in one film.

Queen Wasp: Angelique

Honey Bee: Victoria/Maggie/Josette (?)

Finally, we come to the two opposing corners of Barnabas's love triangle, Eva Green's Angelique and Bella Heathcote's Victoria Winters.  Green's performance detracts from the original to show the psychosis behind Angelique's lust for Barnabas, and while her endgame sequence has been compared (somewhat unjustly) to Death Becomes Her, she ends up being the perfect femme-fatale foil for Barnabas's wounded and struggling morality, especially in the seduction scene where she and Barnabas literally (and passionately) destroy her office.  Heathcote's Winters (who also serves as Josette DuPres) is serviceable, but yet another example of the film trying to do too much: her character cobbles together the roles of Victoria and Maggie Evans from the original, revealing that Winters' real name is Maggie Evans, who as a child was haunted by Josette's ghost and shipped by her parents to a mental asylum.  Escaping to Collinwood, Winters is caught up in the drama of the Collins family and the return of Barnabas, and becomes the eventual prize in the war for Collinsport.  Although her character is understated and perhaps even a bit underwritten for the soap-opera Grand Guignol Burton is attempting to recapture, she does well in her role and plays quietly against Barnabas in her scenes, reining in a bit of Depp's eccentricities.

The mood of the original is well-captured in staging and sets, demonstrating Burton's quirky-Goth sensibilities while not burying the source material beneath them.  Like the original, Dark Shadows the movie is its own world, and the settings of Collinsport and Collinwood, despite the 70's period pastiches, give every appearance of being well off the beaten path.  Longtime Burton collaborator Danny Elfman's score adds the usual deliciously dark flavor to the film, even using a bit of original DS score (sharp-eared fans will catch Robert Cobert's "The Secret Room" cue at the beginning and in other places through the film).

"Yes, I'm completely serious."

Now here are the really good things about this movie: First of all, if you are tired of ethereally pretty supernatural creatures a la Twilight, Vampire Diaries and True Blood, or humorless raging savages with Serious Motives a la the Underworld series, this is the movie for you, as it handles vampires, witches, ghosts and werewolves in a more classical-based yet subversive manner.  Second, it has attracted interest in the original series, and as all episodes of DS still exist it hopefully will help to keep the series in perpetuity via electronic media and so forth.  (Though no one was shouting for special edition DVD sets of McHale's Navy when its movie version came out, I feel that Dark Shadows will fare differently.)

And despite what anyone wants to say, it's hardly a parody of the original.  We have had vampires and other supernatural creatures in the pop-culture consciousness for at least a millennium now, and while Burton's Dark Shadows digs no new ground in the vampire legend (and neither did the original), this film does nothing to make fun of the show or its fanbase.  If it spoofs anything, it spoofs the deadly, unhealthy seriousness and quest for realism we have attached to supernatural and horrific entertainment by setting classical Gothic melodrama in the 1970's, a time when pop-culture completely lacked the ability to be serious about anything.  In this age when we are demanding more from our sources of entertainment than our presidential candidates, we could use a little of those high spirits today, and Burton's Dark Shadows may hold the key to that.  Go see it with an open mind, and then indulge heavily in the original.  You might find yourself joining Team Barnabas after all.  And besides, it's only a movie.

There you go.

"With animosity toward none."

THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD: NOTES ON THE NEW VERSION OF THE MUNSTERS By John Rose

Mad Doctor

Disclaimer: Though the information revealed here is from a legitimate website, it is a description of a projected television pilot and must be considered extremely subject to change.

So a while back, there was talk of a new remake of The Munsters for NBC, which was to be developed by Bryan Fuller, who has created several acclaimed TV series such as Dead Like Me and Wonderfalls, with Bryan Singer (of House and X-Men movie directorial fame) to be executive producer.  Further reports also revealed that the new series would be a "dramedy" and would explore the origins of the Munster clan.

We're a happy family

So, horror fans (and Munsters fans, who are legion), let's talk about what this means.  Horror and fantasy are enjoying quite a resurgence on TV (witness such shows as Supernatural, American Horror Story, Once Upon A Time, The Vampire Diaries, The Secret Circle, the Being Human remake, and Grimm, to name a few), and so the time seems ripe for new adventures of the Munsters.  The Munsters, as every ghoulchild knows, is the venerable 1964-66 sitcom which revolves around the adventures of a family of monsters: Herman, the Frankenstein-monster father (Fred Gwynne), his vampire wife Lily (Yvonne DeCarlo), their werewolf son Eddie (Butch Patrick), cantankerous vampire father-in-law/mad scientist Count Sam "Grandpa" Dracula (Al Lewis) and the "white sheep" of the family, the beautiful and unfortunately very normal Marilyn (alternately played by Beverly Owen and Pat Priest).  Despite lasting only two seasons, The Munsters has a fanbase of longstanding and has sparked several reunion movies (the most well-known being the theatrically released Munster, Go Home! and the made-for-TV The Munsters' Revenge) and at least one series remake, the much-criticized and generally unpopular The Munsters Today.  The major concerns, of course, are the fact that the new series' vision has been described as "True Blood meets Modern Family" and is being touted as a drama rather than a comedy, and that most reboots of old favorites (such as Charlie's Angels and the often-talked-about-but-never-seen Wonder Woman) have gone belly up before they got started.

"Munster who?"

Fans' concerns, of course, are understandable.  The Munsters resonates with many people, even those who don't like horror, because (monster trappings notwithstanding) there is a touch of reality hidden deep in the show.  Despite its occasional slag as being a middle-class version of The Addams Family, which came out at the same time, the Munsters occasionally reflected what our families were actually like; in temperament and attitude, Herman and Lily are actually pretty close to real parents, while the Addamses were more like the parents kids wished they had.  And though the Addamses were a bit more intellectual in their comedy than the Munsters were, at heart The Munsters is a comic-horror parody of The Donna Reed Show, which at the time was the quintessential American family sitcom: one comparative look at TDRS's opening sequence with that of the Munsters' first season is proof.  To see the Munster clan transformed into a gloomy and modernized band of necrotic neurotics is hardly something committed Munsters fans would care for.

Recently, the Moviehole website (click our title link to access the full article) revealed a list of major spoilers for the new version of The Munsters, which at the time of this writing is now retitled Mockingbird Lane (a reference to the Munsters' original home address and also a definite bid for aligning with the Troubled Family Show crowd) and has been pushed back somewhat to allow NBC to bring more attention to the project and make time to assemble the perfect cast and direction.  So here's the basic skinny on this, which can be considered extremely subject to change (as per our disclaimer):

"So I'm a werewolf.  Wait... what?"

The new pilot, as well as a fair chunk of the new series, will largely focus on Eddie, whose werewolf genes have kicked in following the onset of puberty.  After a disastrous event with Eddie's camp scout troop, the Munster clan must move to Mockingbird Heights following a "baby bear attack" (ahem) and manage, with the help of Marilyn (who serves as the smokescreen for the family, which is not a bad idea considering her mostly one-joke appearances in the original show) to score a dilapidated mansion in the area, literally saving it from the wrecking ball.  (Of course, the house has a bad history; it was once the home of a serial killer who preyed on hobos, and a few bodies may even be still in the walls.  Still, location's everything, right?)

Shortly after, the Munsters arrive in crates at their new home (with Grandpa and Lily, true to their vampiric natures, reassembling themselves from huge masses of rats and spiders) and begin to settle in.  Major conflicts stem from Eddie's problems with his lycanthropy and Herman's need for a new heart, which runs on a steampunk engine and is breaking down.  Lily also figures in the new-heart issue: she doesn't want Herman to get a new heart because the current one belonged to Eddie's biological father.  And Grandpa, who has been feeding from animals to keep Eddie from flaking out over his monster lineage, is looking forward to feeding from humans again now that Eddie's truly "one of the family..."

"Sparkly vampires?  Hmmph!!"

Now, despite the rather dark and melodramatic twists in the story, this is not totally bad on paper.  Much of it will depend on how it's depicted and handled, and any TV venture requires time to work its spell; genre shows more so than most.  My personal problem with it is that the story itself does not quite come across to me as The Munsters; though Herman and Lily are still loving, caring parents (plans are that they will assist Eddie in his new struggle, which here reads as a large nod to the MTV version of Teen Wolf), the writers plan for them to look a bit more human than what we're used to (Herman, being a Frankenstein monster, will still have quite a few scars due to being assembled from parts of other men).  And I seriously doubt if Al Lewis would approve of this new, improved and much more frightening version of Grandpa, who reads as nothing like Lewis's crafty yet friendly old vampire.  If anything, this new version of the Munsters comes across as closer to the late and somewhat lamented The Gates, which detailed the adventures of a human family who become caretakers of a gated community of monsters, vampires, werewolves, and so forth.  Personally, I think if we are to have a new Munsters series, the wisest and perhaps simplest thing to do would be to recover the cast of The Munsters' Scary Little Christmas, a 1996 made-for-TV Munsters movie that paid excellent tribute to the original show while maintaining a somewhat sharper edge, and go from there.  (For the curious, our own Monster Shop review of this movie can be found here.)

However, the wisest and simplest thing often has nothing to do with making television.  So there you go.  It remains to be seen how the new Munsters will play out, but I for one will keep an eye out to see what happens.  Maybe even two.  There's still some extra ones in the jar...

MONSTERGRRLS AUTHOR INTERVIEWED BY WHY DID YOU WRITE THAT? By John Rose

Below is a link to an interview I recently did with Peter Joseph Lewis, the mastermind behind the innovative authors' blog WHY DID YOU WRITE THAT? He recently spoke with me about my first book in the MonsterGrrls series, Out From The Shadows.  Click the link below to read the full interview.


Why Did You Write That?: John Rose - Out From the Shadows: It is our pleasure today to have John Rose, author and creator of The MonsterGrrls Series. He is promoting the first book in the series, Out...

NEW MONSTERGRRLS PROMO VIDEO By John Rose

Presenting our new 2012 promotional video for MonsterGrrls.  The music is an original piece entitled "The MonsterGrrls Theme" and was written by our fiend Greg West, who composed an entire suite of music about the Grrls.  Witness the mayhem below...

You can also watch this on YouTube at our title link above.

TALES FROM THE MONSTER SHOP: RESURRECTING HAMMER FILMS By John Rose

So it's Halloween, and may I wish everyone who joins us this evening a most happy, happy Halloween.  Usually at this point in the Thir13en For Halloween, I talk about a really cool horror film that some of the horror fans out there may have ignored, overlooked or simply are not aware of.  Well, this Halloween I'm bringing along a whole studio.  The legendary Hammer Film Productions has returned to the public eye with plans to make horror films for a new generation of Hammerheads, and with the release of the successful Wake Wood, their loving remake of Tomas Alfredson's Let The Right One In (titled Let Me In) and the upcoming The Woman In Black, it looks like they're in it to win it, folks.

The Public Life Of Henry The Ninth

Hammer Films has actually been around since 1934, when it was begun by William Hinds, a comedian and entrepeneur who named the company from his own stage name, Will Hammer.  The first Hammer release was the successful comedy The Public Life Of Henry The Ninth, playfully titled after Britain's Academy-Award-nominated The Private Life Of Henry VIII.  Hammer put out a further four films (among them The Mystery Of The Marie Celeste, starring Bela Lugosi) before being forced into bankruptcy in 1937.  In 1946, Hammer was revived by James Carreras, and the company went into shooting various adaptations of radio serials and original mysteries.

Professor Quatermass

1955 saw Hammer's first real entry into the horror realm with an unexpected success: an adaptation of a sci-fi serial shown on BBC Television, The Quatermass Xperiment.  The popularity of this film led to a sequel, Quatermass 2, and Hammer began to investigate American distribution for its product.  Hooking up with Associated Artists Productions (AAP), AAP's head, Eliot Hyman, sent a script for an adaptation of Frankenstein to his contact at Hammer.  Due to concerns that the script followed Universal's film Son Of Frankenstein a tad too closely, the script was eventually rewritten by Jimmy Sangster as The Curse Of Frankenstein.  Directed by Terence Fisher, Curse Of Frankenstein brought together the soon-to-be-infamous team of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, who would appear separately and together in many more of Hammer's most famous horror productions.

The Curse Of Frankenstein

The Not-So-Good Doctor

The Very Evil Count

The raging international success of COF brought forth a sequel, The Revenge Of Frankenstein, in which Cushing reprised his performance of Dr. Frankenstein.  Around this time, Hammer began to consider other horror icons, and in 1958, Horror Of Dracula exploded into theatres with Cushing and Lee doing another tag-team effort as Van Helsing and Dracula.  The technicolor radicality of the production and Christopher Lee's hissing, spitting, animalized performance as the Count broke international box-office records and secured Hammer the rights to remake the entire Universal library.

Queen Of The Hammers

Lovely Miss Caroline

Ingrid gets frisky

The success of The Curse Of Frankenstein and Horror Of Dracula led to entire cycles of films based on these iconic monsters, with Cushing and Lee cavorting as Van Helsing and Dracula for most of the Dracula cycle and Cushing gnawing the scenery as the ever-deranged and viciously sarcastic Dr. Frankenstein through several Frankenstein sequels.  Both of these cycles, and Hammer's other pictures, also gave rise (in more ways than one) to the entity known as Hammer Glamour, as a bevy of beautiful actresses were certain to appear in each new picture.  Among the notable Hammer Glamourites were Ingrid Pitt (who appeared as Countess Karnstein in The Vampire Lovers), Barbara Shelley (who appeared in Dracula, Prince Of Darkness and The Gorgon, and would soon become Hammer's top female star), Martine Beswick (who had the title role in Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde), and the legendary Caroline Munro (famed for Hammer's somewhat offbeat Captain Kronos, Vampire Hunter).  Apart from the Frankenstein and Dracula cycles, Hammer did four notable films based on the Mummy (The Mummy, Curse Of The Mummy's Tomb, The Mummy's Shroud, and Blood From The Mummy's Tomb) and would also create other famous (and notorious) films such as Plague Of The Zombies (which would precede Night Of The Living Dead by about two years), Curse of The Werewolf (with the much-loved Oliver Reed as the Werewolf), and adaptations of both The Phantom Of The Opera (with Herbert Lom) and H. Rider Haggard's novel She (featuring Ursula Andress as, well, She).  Hammer wound down in the 1970's with a disastrous production of Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes, which all but bankrupted the studio.  However, the Hammer films would not be forgotten, as scads of horror hosts in local markets and such shows as Creature Features and Chiller Theatre would include most of Hammer's output in their offerings, ensuring their place--and much love--in the minds and hearts of horror fans.

Wake Wood

Let Me In

In 2007, Hammer resurfaced in the news, as Dutch producer John De Mol purchased the Hammer films rights and planned to restart the studio.  Their first production was a Myspace-exclusive contemporary vampire story called Beyond The Rave.  In 2008, work began on Wake Wood, shooting in Donegal, Ireland with backing by the Irish Film Board, and led to Wake Wood seeing a limited UK/Ireland release in March of 2011.  Bolstered by good reviews and success, Hammer soon partnered with Overture Films and Relativity Media to introduce a 2010 remake of the acclaimed Swedish vampire film Let The Right One In, titled Let Me In.

In 2012, Hammer will return to the Gothic sensibilities with which it made its mark, via a new supernatural thriller titled The Woman In Black.  Based on the Susan Hill novel of the same name, the film stars Daniel Radcliffe (of Harry Potter fame) and is the story of a Victorian-era London lawyer who journeys to a remote English village for the settlement of the recently deceased Alice Drablow, and finds a terrible supernatural mystery that endangers his own child.  Set to hit theaters in February of 2012, The Woman In Black has all the Gothic horrors and mystery that made Hammer great, and in the current mire of remakes, sequels and half-baked genre films, it's no doubt going to be one of the better horror releases of 2012.  Watch for it.  We'll be there.

In closing, the MonsterGrrls and I, as always, have taken great delight in bringing you fun, laughs, and frights for Halloween, and we hope you stick around for what we do next.  May all of you reading this have a prosperous, safe, and happy Halloween for 2011, and please join us again for the party in 2012.  This time, maybe we'll see if we can't blow up the lab...

Happy Halloween to all,
John Rose (the Mad Doctor) and the MonsterGrrls: Frankie, Bethany, Harriet and Punkin 

SPECIAL THANKS TO: John Dimes, Rebecca Bishop, Mod Ghoul, Diane Irby, Sinister Minister and the Altargirls, Uncle Fright, Marlena Midnite, Nicolette Lewis and Sasha Trasha, Bobby Gammonster, Joe Flynn, The Bone Jangler, The Pumpkin Man, The Movie Gravedigger, Jebediah Buzzard and the great Count Gore De Vol.  We couldn't have done any of this without you, and keep up all your good work.  Happy Halloween to you all from all of us here at the Monster Shop!! --J.R. and the Grrls