Dear God!  Wanda Paisley.  Supernatural horror on DS at its finest.

The wig on that skull is truly priceless...

G.

Dear Fans,

back from a lovely weekend awash in vivid fall colors up in Ontario--and who greets me upon my return but none other than Carlotta Drake at her most fervently FIERCE.  If I recall correctly, the gown Grayson wears in this scene really flatters her complexion, which I believe in somebody's taxonomy of physical "types" is actually described as "autumn."

Really special to be greeted by the sight of my special DS Goddess upon my return here!  I love the snap of Roger-the-Zombie, which has a distinctly Ed Wood look to it, too.

cheers, G.

Hi Philippe,

that's an interesting speculation!  I seem to recall that back in the Sixties, Barnabas' look was often described as vaguely "Byronic," and I believe that Ruthven himself was modeled upon Lord Byron, with whom Dr. Polidori had a very complicated relationship (rather similar to Count Dracula having been modeled upon Bram Stoker's sometime employer, 1890s stage idol Henry Irving).

From very vague memories of reading The Vampyre back when I was in my teens (and you do realize we're going back to the Early Bronze Age here, so it was a loooonnngggg time ago), Ruthven is somewhat similar to the original 1967 characterization of Barnabas--unscrupulous, with a pronounced vicious streak, yet strangely attractive and undeniably erotic--perhaps it was in this sense that the critic you cite thought of Ruthven as "sympathetic."

My feeling is that there were variouis forerunners to Barnabas but the character brought these dispersed elements together in a new way.  In the Universal 1940s thriller, House of Dracula, the Count arrives at the home of an Eric Lang-like scientist claiming that he is seeking a cure for his "affliction" (but I don't think that word is used).  The medical explanation given for vampirism in the movie is similar to Dr. Hoffman's theory about a "destructive blood cell" which leads to disastrous consequences for the main mad-doctor protagonist in "House of Dracula."

The scenario of the vampire seeking a cure develops in a very different way in the 1940s film from how it played out on DS, but I do think of that movie as being influential in how Dr. Hoffman's storyline was plotted, and subsequent developments that grew out of that.  In the first script in which "he" was supposed to appear, Hoffman is described as an austere white-haired scientist in his early sixties, similar to the scientist character in HoD.

G.

This is a really fascinating thread, with which I am finally catching up.  I don't think I ever read that novel, although we got Scholastic paperbacks at school and I remember the excitement of ordering the books and finally having them arrive.

"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" is of course originally a quote from the King James translation of the Bible, and I thought Angelique did quote it in one of the scenes where she was scheming to have Vicki framed as the Witch in 1795.  I still don't have the 1795 DVD sets and I gave the videotapes away, so I have no way of checking right now.  The scene I remember has Ang going on to gloat that a Witch found guilty will be reduced to "ashes"--or maybe fire--but isn't the scene where she uses spellcraft to create a spectral fire that drives Vicki out of her hiding place and into Trask's clutches.

Philippe, in certain areas of France and Germany, the Witch-craze in the late Sixteenth and early Seventeenth centuries reached the point where hundreds of people were accused and tried in the space of a very few years.  And I believe it was all heavily localized, as was the case in Massachusetts in 1692-93.  So some districts were heavily afflicted by the craze and others had minimal activity.  To this day the cause of all of it remains obscure.  The study of Witchcraft in early modern Europe has become a MAJOR cottage industry amongst academic historians in the past quarter century, oddly enough.

G.

I thought I'd heard of all the DS related books out there, but this one totally passed me by.

Would love to hear a review of the book, if anyone on the Boards here owns it.

G.

Hope it all goes safely and smoothly.

Best, G.

At least they saved the best for last.

So, Barnabas Collins' inner monologue sounds just like a Valley Girl.  And he always seemed so ... courtly!  *wink*

G.