I was surprised to learn about this recently. Mentally disturbed filmmaker Tim Burton has brought the legendary ‘Dark Shadows’ series to the big screen, starring – you guessed it – his favorite actor, the equally disturbed Johnny Depp. Depp portrays Barnabas Collins, a vampire who rises from his crypt in the family mausoleum, after being released by a grave-robbing drifter, and joins his contemporary relatives on their gigantic Maine estate. ‘Dark Shadows,’ which ran from 1966 – 1971, was the first prime time soap opera and the first to feature a gothic theme. It was unprecedented for its time and instantly gained a cult following – no pun intended. The original series returned to television in the early 1980’s, when I discovered – and fell in love with – it. The Burton movie obviously plays with the storyline’s horror-tinted and sexually-charged overtones.
Chief Writing Wolf 