One of my TV channels has been doing reruns of the original Dark Shadows around 2 or 3 AM and I watched a few of them and couldn't believe how corny the sets and dialogue were. I adored this show when I was younger and remember racing home from school so I could watch it on TV every weekday.
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- Thread starter Warborg
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This ^ exactly! Dark Shadows was one of two TV shows...the other was The Three Stooges
...which had me and most of my friends glued to our TV sets right after school. No baseball or street hockey or anything else until after they finished.Dark Shadows always made me somewhat dissatisfied with my home town. We didn't know anybody with a vampire's coffin in the basement or ghosts or werewolves or dismembered hands crawling around like tarantulas. Not one member of our family was afflicted with any supernatural curses or exotic ailments. It was a comparatively dull life.
@deeda , if you haven't seen it, you should look up the original Dark Shadows movies (there were 2), from back in the 60's or 70's. No Johnny Depp nonsense, but good ol' Jonathan Frid (he's Canadian, eh?) looking as weird and campy as ever.
Bela Lugosi was my favorite Dracula
These guys were great Draculas, for sure...I love the old Hammer horror films with Chrisopher Lee and Peter Cushing, and Lugosi will always be the classic Dracula...but I think the best adaptation of the Dracula story was done by Francis Ford Coppola, called "Bram Stoker's Dracula". I don't know who came up with the idea of Gary Oldman as the title character, but he is such a talented actor that he pulled it off with flying colours.
The scene of him rubbing his hands together and chuckling as his plans come together was amazing.
Gary Oldman is a class act. I've never seen him as Dracula but I can certainly imagine he did the part justice, there's not a lot he can't do.
If you haven't seen this film you need to check it out. He is outstanding in the role! Nothing campy or corny about it, totally deadpan serious.
I'll have a search about. Bram Stokers Dracula from 1993? There should be some platform somewhere where I'll get it.
To be honest though the old classic black and white type horror films such as Dracula and Frankenstein, with the likes of Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee, Boris Karloff, Vincent Price and Peter Lorre etc etc didn't appeal to me that much.
Maybe it was because, as a kid, around 11 or 12 years old or so, I watched such a horror film with my mum, she loved horror films. It was called "Zoltan, hound of Dracula". I think it was about 1978 or thereabouts. I absolutely shat myself. To me, at that age, it was pure trauma, lol.
If I saw that film today I'd probably howl laughing, lol.
I LOVE all those hammer movies.These guys were great Draculas, for sure...I love the old Hammer horror films with Chrisopher Lee and Peter Cushing, and Lugosi will always be the classic Dracula...but I think the best adaptation of the Dracula story was done by Francis Ford Coppola, called "Bram Stoker's Dracula". I don't know who came up with the idea of Gary Oldman as the title character, but he is such a talented actor that he pulled it off with flying colours.
The scene of him rubbing his hands together and chuckling as his plans come together was amazing.
Bram Stokers Dracula was FANTASTIC. Well done. Gary Oldman was great and so was Anthony Hopkins. I watched a good Boris Karloff movie last night. Die Monster Die.I forgot about that film but I have to agree on Oldman being a class act.I've been a fan of his work since True Romance and The Profesional.
The best thing I've ever seen him in is "The Darkest Hour" where he plays Winston Churchill. His performance is absolutely extraordinary.