Monday, March 03, 2008

Maximum Nostalgia: What Scared Me Shitless In 1969

When I was a child in Florida, around 1969, I discovered the TV soap opera Dark Shadows. I was hooked from the very first episode I ever saw: this one. It details the death of Reverend Trask, a witch-hunter, at the hands of vampire Barnabas Collins, who bricks him up into a wall alcove รก la Poe's story The Cask of Amontillado.

The episode on TV was a half hour, some kind soul has cut it down to its essentials, just over 10 minutes. This scene scared the ever-loving shit out of me, and I've always wanted to see it again. It's comical now; the special effects are amateurish, the dialog stilted; but for 1969 it was pretty good, and quite good enough to scare legions of children. The show was actually taken off the air because of a letter-writing campaign by concerned mothers (and low ratings).

Anyway, here it is: the death of Rev. Trask.



As a bonus, the original theme music for the TV show can be found here. Heavy on the Theremin, I think.

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