Saturday, May 19, 2012

Classic Dark Shadows Updates

  • Dynamite Comics will be pitting Barnabas Collins against one of their other vampire properties, Vampirella, in a new crossover beginning in August. The story sees the pair forming an alliance to hunt for a murderer in the Big Apple.
  • The Dark Shadows Festival are now accepting memberships for July's Day at Collinwood event, taking place in Tarrytown, New York on July 28. The itinerary will now include a tribute to Jonathan Frid (Barnabas Collins) and the premiere screening of his final video interview. For more information, click here.
  • Fans in New York City can catch Marie Wallace (Eve) and Larry Storch in a charity performance of Love Letters, taking place on June 24 to benefit the Manhattan Actors Temple. For more information, click here.
  • Lara Parker (Angelique) is interviewed by the Memphis Commercial Appeal about the enduring popularity of Dark Shadows: "Longing for immortality is the source of religion – we want to live forever. Barnabas got to do that, but on the other hand, he's dead. Would we choose immortality if we had to be monsters? It's a fascinating idea."
  • A few readers have emailed in asking if the recently-reissued Dark Shadows DVD volumes feature the restored footage included in the new Complete Series DVD Box Set; As we reported previously, the opportunity was taken to reinstate some sequences that were accidentally removed from the original discs. We can confirm that episodes 451 and 695 are now included as broadcast on Collection 6 and Collection 12.

8 comments:

Travis said...

Interesting about the cut scenes--can anyone give more info about what scenes were cut from those episodes or a link to the discussion?

StuartM said...

The "previously reported" part of the story links to an earlier post with more info.

Anonymous said...

Will MPI be exchanging old discs for new ones, as many other companies have done when correcting mastering errors? Many of us already own the entire series on DVD and would rather not have to repurchase two volumes in order to get the corrected versions.

Travis said...

Cool, thanks for the response on the link!

Chellis610 said...

What about episode 471? That has the scene where Vicki meets Harry Johnson and recognizes him as Noah Gifford from 1795- another scene edited by MPI! Has that been restored too?

StuartM said...

That one I know nothing about – I've never heard any reports that it's incomplete.

It's also worth reminding people that the edits were not performed by MPI or Dan Curtis Productions. They were made without their knowledge by Worldvision when the show's master tapes were re-transferred into digital format.

PaulK said...

Are there any other "bonus" features that were not included in the original DVD releases? Can't really see spending the money for, essentially, a re-package.

Chellis610 said...

My apologies- I just checked the DVD, and the scene IS intact. I remember reading online that the Harry Johnson intro had been cut a bit on the DVD releae,but it's not so. Still, I will buy the new corrected sets to supplement what I already have (which is everything MPI has put out!).