You know, after reliving the plot of NoDS several times through MB's dissection of it, I finally realized that Charles and Angelique weren't star-crossed lovers, but real skanks.  No wonder they turned into vitriolic spooks - if they wouldn't fight spook-and-nail to remain Earth-bound, they both would've ended up spending eternity shoveling coal.

Gerard

Happy Thanksgiving Annie and all wonderful cousins here!  I'm going with friends to a country club.  Ooo, how fancy-schmancy!  But here's to all the memoires of Thanksgiving in the 60's, when my mom got up at 3:00 a.m. to being the procedures, watching the parade, and no DS in the afternoon.

Gerard

In fourth grade, I had to do a class report on Brazil (thankfully, my parents had just purchased the complete set of the World Book Encyclopedia), so I knew what Belem was when Liz mentioned it.  Too bad they didn't have Fourth Grade Jeopardy with Art Fleming back then.

Gerard

Apparently, after the success of House of Dark Shadows, plans for the next film were to be a direct sequel, with Barnabas returning, but Jonathan Frid said no to reprising the role, so the project eventually became Night of Dark Shadows.  But if making the sequel had succeeded, I always wondered what it would be about.

At the conclusion of HoDS, many of the primary characters had gone compost:  Carolyn; Julia; Roger; Eliot, and Willie.  Those major ones remaining were Elizabeth, David, Maggie and Jeff.  Minor ones were Mrs. Johnson, Todd - who survived Carolyn - and Daphne who, I take it, survived Barnabas' attack.  Elizabeth had gone Frances Farmer; David was an orphan.  Thinking logically, what would've happened to all of them after the blood letting brought on by a now-staked Barnabas?  Elizabeth undoubtedly would've remained at Collinwood with Mrs. Johnson tending to her as she tried to figure out how to market her secret mayonnaise.  David, now a Dickensian waif with an enormous trust fund, probably would've been turned over to child protective services who would've placed him under a state guardianship and would be shipped off to an all-year prestigious boarding school, possibly in Europe, until he reaches majority.  Maggie and Jeff would take off, eloping, finding a new home far away, trying to stay incognito while he remains a struggling artist and she brings home the bacon as a school teacher.  Todd would've probably spent some time recuperating at Wyndcliffe and once his marbles are all back in place, odds are he definitely wouldn't remain in Collinsport and seek his future elsewhere.  Daphne, also mended, certainly wouldn't resume doing secretarial work for her employer who now thinks she's Queen Victoria and would seek places distant to resume her life.

So, in great bloody and violent Hammeresque style, Barnabas resurrects and what does he find?  At a now desolate Collinwood, there are two late-middle-aged women, one thinking it's 1901 and the other having her sample sandwich spread, hopefully their shared existence not turning into Blanche and Baby Jane Hudson.  He no longer has a Renfield in Willie to watch over him and drag his coffin around.  Does he even still have a coffin?  Wouldn't the police either have hauled it away as evidence or even destroyed it?  Where will Barnabas sleep the sleep of the dead?  As for his Josette, she (and her husband) are long gone and nobody knows where.

With just those remaining characters, what would a plot involving a returning Barnabas be about?  Maybe somebody knows or even has a good I-think-I-remember-hearing answer to give us.  If not, what do our DS cousins here would think would be a great storyline?

Gerard

My parents could not miss an episode of Bridget Loves Birney, Bob, because it was so Catholic.  It was also so Jewish, too, but that was also perfectly fine by my parents.  My parents were as Catholic as Catholic can be, but on Sunday afternoons, they never missed going to the synagogue because that's when the temple had, as my dad would say:  "da best bingo in town."  He would provide proof by saying:  "da Cat'lics, dey got crap for prizes, but da Jews, dey got da good prizes - I tells Faddah Kozaziski to look at what dat Rabbi gives, but duz he listen? - no."  Bridget Loves Birney did more for "ecumenical" relations than anything else.

Gerard

Here's that one exception, MB.  Let me preface it by restating that I'm a total, complete 100% skeptic but with a total, complete 100% open mind and I will admit that I have no explanation for things I experienced and will say so, even though - to me - there is a logical, non-supernatural reason that just hasn't been found yet (call me stubborn).  When I do ghost-hunting, the ghost-hunters I ghost-hunt with like that because most do believe in ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggedy-beasties and things that go bump in the night and they know it's good to have someone who is 1) fully skeptical to challenge them and find logical answers, and 2) is not the least bit afraid of the rappings, moanings, footsteps, slammings, etc. and instead of running from it will run right to it.

Also, still in the preface, I have experienced many things that would cause one to flee down the old, slanted staircase and out the rickety, creaking door, but those were not a part of ghost-hunting - they were a part of places I just happened to stay or be in, like the supposedly haunted house of friends I lived in when they were on vacation, a haunted museum and a haunted Y I worked in.  What I'm about describe is the occurrences during a ghost-hunting, not just from the fortune of being in a haunted locale.  If one would like to hear about those incidents, maybe I could relate them in an appropriate Halloweenish thread.

Like I said, I have done several ghost-hauntings including in spots found in the many literary collections about famous haunts, from abandoned hotels to old cemetaries and nothing happened.  This particular ghost-hunting experience - planned to be such, with all the investigating methods - was in the house of a friend-of-a-friend where other-worldly things reportedly happened.  Four of us participated, with an overnight stay.  After a wonderful evening dinner in a local, popular eatery, we returned to the house - we even had a couple dogs in tow since they're supposedly "sensitive" - for a post-supper cocktail hour.  The one witness to the events filled us in on activities and where in the old house they occurred.  Knowing my beans about investigations, we headed to those places.  One was at the bottom of the basement staircase where a powerful "presence" or "force" would be felt.  Looking around, I found it:  up above was a metal airduct covered by scores of electrical wiring.  Ghost number one set to rest.  There were others accounted for putting them to rest as well.  We conducted a seance of sorts, all four in the most haunted bedroom, a single candle lit, lights off, and just sitting around (I sat on the floor) and questions and requests were made to anyone - or anything - that was there.  Nothing happened until the owner of the house said he strongly felt - he knew - something was in the long, walk-in closet.  Without hesitation, I walked straight into the dark chamber and found...nothing.

It was time to go to bed.  We paired off.  As an "experienced ghost-hunter," I knew it was imperative to never be alone - first, any experience has to be corroborated by two witnesses and, second, being alone, even as a skeptic, allows for the "frights" and an overactive imagination.  I and a friend shared one room; the two other friends another (the dogs were with them).  We fell asleep.

I woke up, tossed a bit, settled back down and then I heard it:  a closed fist knocking on the wood trim around a door frame to "most haunted" bedroom next to us.  I laid there, listening, and then I whispered to my friend next to me:  "Are you awake?"

He took a deep breath and answered:  "Yes."

"Do you hear that? I inquired.

"Yes."

"What do you hear?"  Ghost-busting again:  ask what he hears instead of putting the thought of the it in his head - "what do you hear," not "do you hear that knocking?."

"A rapping.  Somebody's knocking outside our room."

We remained still and it continued and then I whispered:  "Let's very quietly get up and go to the door.  Don't look out until I say so."  We did, not making a sound getting out of the bed, sliding across the floor until we got to the open door and pressed ourselves along the wall, the hard, knuckle-knocking continuing.

"When I count to three," I silently told him, "we look."

I counted up and at three we both simultaneously thrust our heads out into the hallway and looked in the direction of the sound.  The very second we did, it stopped.  We then went down to the open door of the empty bedroom, went inside and looked around, including the long, walk-in closet.  Nothing.  We crept down the corridor to the room where our friends were sleeping and looked in.  Both were there, sound asleep, as well as the dogs.

The next morning, we told them what happened - they heard nothing.  Then they asked me, the skeptic, for my explanation.  I did have one.  Close to where the knocking echoed there was a laundry chute door.  The owner stated that sometimes the water-heater by where it emptied in the basement made clanking sounds.  We tried to imitate them to see if they would echo against the wood door frame two floor above, but we couldn't.

So, I really have no explanation.  What was it?  A ghost?  Skeptics like me leave that answer for those who aren't.

Gerard

The Wolfman was also my scariest monster!  With Dracula, there were ways to ward him off (crosses, garlic, reset his alarm clock so he missed getting back to his coffin at sunrise).  Frankenstein's monster was also quite lumbering so one could probably outrun him.  The Mummy was more lumbering than Frankie.  And just stay clear of the water and you'll stay pretty clear of the Creature.  But the Wolfman?  Unless one had a solid stick of whoop-ass silver on hand, there wasn't much of anything to hold him off and he seemed to be a pretty fast runner and add that he was just a murdering machine killing everyone in sight, he just gave me the frights.

Gerard

I'm over 60, Bob, and I've hardly even heard of it!  I'm sure it was a fine show and its name will cause people to hear a bell ring, but I never had any interest in watching it.  I don't think I ever did.

Gerard