Dark Shadows: A Vampire TV Show Resurrected

I was listening to MF Doom's song, Hyssop on the way home from work, and it dawned on me that I used to LOVE the 1960's supernatural soap opera Dark Shadows. In the song MF Doom samples from the show's theme. I've always known this, but it was just one of those daily epiphanies that kicks you right in the head, and brought me back to 1996. Exactly 30 years after it first aired, I watched Dark Shadows in syndication on The Sci-Fi channel on summer afternoons. Other 70s sci-fi TV shows like Night Gallery got in the line up as well, but DS was my favorite. The show had hauntings, possessions, witches, mansions, creepy theme music, and it's main character was a 200 year-old vampire named Branabas Collins.




Dark Shadows was an introduction to my interest in the macabre. As a 9 year-old, it was the first time I watched something that was scary but enjoyed feeling unsettled. I became addicted to that feeling. Dark Shadows explains everything from my love of David Lynch to the lady boner I have for True Blood. Dark Shadows can be considered a rough pre-cursor to True Blood, in that the main character(s) are vampire, there are warewolves, witches, and ghosts. There's drama, supernatural perils, and love stories (though True Blood is hard-core porn compared to DS). I still prefer scary movies that are more psychological than gorey.



I was very excited to hear that Tim Burton is making a movie adaptation of Dark Shadows. Do I even have to tell you that Johnny Depp is in it? What's interesting is that the film is set in the 1970s, just like the original version of the show (DS was also remade for NBC in 1991). Burton could have just set it in present day, which obviously was the original intention of DS, but it's clear he wants to be true to the TV series. I'm hopeful for the quality of the movie, but I hope the obscurity of Dark Shadows as a cult TV show doesn't keep the project underground. How many puns can you get out of that sentence? 

Here's one last Dark Shadows video to send you off on. Though the show was not exactly meant for kids, DS clearly made an impact on that demographic. Even 30 years later a kid like me got into it. How very 60s to capitalize off a soap opera by making a children's board game out of it!

Care Package #2: My Guide to VICE.com Documentaries for You Hip People

Toxic: Garbage Island

VICE is a controversial magazine/website dedicated to (let's not mince words) hipsters. VICE covers fashion, music, pop culture, art, photography, sex, weirdos, gross-out journalism, travel, and bizarre cultural practices. While most of the content is written, there is a wealth of documentaries in the video section of their website. VICE is prolific in their documentary series which features a large cast of young journalists, and makes one wonder how profitable VICE actually is to be able to fund all of the travel expenses. Maybe it's all thanks to American Apparel.

The difference between VICE documentaries, and other documentaries I watch, is that VICE's are showcased in a blog.  Most of the films I watch, though I often view them online on Hulu or YouTube, have at least been in limited release in independent theaters at some point in time. The VICE documentaries debut in the 21st century version of direct to video: direct to the web and on a computer near you. Which is not to say that a VICE documentary is lesser than the average documentary. VICE screens the film off of their website so viewers' comments are visible, and there is related content and other fun stuff to look at that you might not have stumbled upon otherwise. The documentaries are presented in a relatable and vernacular style, which does not necessarily over-simplify the message; it makes you feel like you're taking in a genuine experience. Each documentary also belongs to a specific series. You can therefore see another documentary you liked with similar themes on a consistent basis. That's something the average documentary film maker can't promise you.
Here are three of my favorite VICE series to watch.

Hamilton's Pharmacopeia
Watching Hamilton go to exotic and dangerous places to alter his mind is such a joy. It sounds like going around the world just to try psychotropic drugs is a vapid activity, but the culture behind it is always intriguing, a prime example being the video below, Hamilton's Pharmacopeia: Nzambi. In this installment Hamilton goes to Haiti and explores what it means to be turned into a zombie using the traditional herbs, venom, and voodoo practices. It's always compelling seeing Hamilton try to cope with the new cultures and people he encounters, and well as the crazy things locals try to put in him. My two favorite episodes, Nzambi and The Sapo Diaries, both involve Hamilton taking drugs through the forearm, but not intravenously. You have to watch to find out how. 



Toxic
The series Toxic reveals the grittiest images of pollution in the modern world. The documentary, Toxic: Garbage Island, was my first taste of a VICE documentary. As seen in the video below, Garbage Island follows three VICE corespondents as they sail the North Pacific Gyre with a group of scientists collecting samples of plastic in the ocean. The Gyre contains a clump of plastic waste predicted to be the size of Texas. Aside from the middle of the Pacific Ocean, Toxic has also been to the Amazon, West Virginia, and China, amongst others. Most installments of Toxic show how pollution deeply effects people and their environment as it is happening currently. I liked Garbage Island for turning pollution into a faceless, lurking, Jaws-esque villain. The crew is in the middle of the ocean, no land in sight, nothing seems amiss. Yet when they run their skimmer through the waves, out comes some terrifying stuff.



Vice Guide to North Korea
Shane Smith, founder of Vice Magazine and our guide through this documentary, put it best when he described North Korea is an insane country. Three points in this film that embody such insanity: the lonely tea-girl the crew met in the middle of nowhere who had not seen any customers for days, the massive banquet hall in the hotel filled with food for no one, and Arirang (a spectacular performance by thousands of children). Bizarrely, all of these activities were shared by Shane and the crew alone (because they won't let anyone else into North Korea). In this documentary, as well as North Korean Labor Camps and North Korean Film Madness, the delusions of this severely isolated country are revealed as sad and fascinating.