Sunday, August 31, 2014
Saturday, August 30, 2014
Friday, August 29, 2014
Joan Bennett in Suspiria ... as a Bunny
If you've never checked out angryalien.com, which does movies in thirty seconds -- with bunnies -- then you owe it to yourself to go there right now. No, it's okay ... I'll wait.
And if you want to cut in line, here's the Joan Bennett bunny version of Suspiria. Worth it. Totally worth it.
http://angryalien.com/aa/suspiriabuns.asp
And if you want to cut in line, here's the Joan Bennett bunny version of Suspiria. Worth it. Totally worth it.
http://angryalien.com/aa/suspiriabuns.asp
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Monday, August 25, 2014
Sunday, August 24, 2014
Saturday, August 23, 2014
Friday, August 22, 2014
Thursday, August 21, 2014
Dark Shadows MPI Video Ad
Now watching my complete collection DVDs (skipping through eras hither, thither, and yon), it makes me goggle just a teensy bit to think, once upon a time, of all (ALL) those MPI video cassettes people (including yours truly) collected, all 200 plus, each containing a wee five episodes.
The video covers were cool though.
The video covers were cool though.
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
Monday, August 18, 2014
WWCS?
... or, "What Would Cassandra Say?" I plan to ask myself this question whenever I'm presented with a potential quandary.
Sunday, August 17, 2014
Brides of Barnabas, er, Dracula
The painted cover for a 1960 novel called Brides of Dracula, though it looks more like Barnabas Collins putting in an appearance six years early.
Shadows on the Wall Chapter 122
CHAPTER
122: The Secret
by Nicky
Voiceover by Donna Wandrey: “Collinwood,
in the year 1840 … a time Barnabas and Julia have managed to bring to life once
again … a time of tragedy common to the other decades the Collins family has
known. And on this night, after a series
of deaths, a witch and a vampire find themselves facing a familiar threat from
their own time.”
1
Roxanne
ducked, and the black bolt of energy flew over her head. She grinned, baring her fangs, and hissed,
“Missed me, ducky.”
Valerie
Collins – the witch Angelique – scowled, then drew her hands back before her
and began to weave them once again through the air. Her eyes glittered obsidian. Her lips stretched into a grin. “Only once,” she purred, and thrust out her
hands once again.
In
the background, Barnabas Collins could only watch helplessly, a bystander, a
role he felt with frustration that he played more and more often these
days. Even with all the strength and
skill of the vampire curse at his disposal, he was still relegated to this
place: against the wall, watching.
They
were ambushed the moment they entered the Old House. “I will make a spell,” Angelique was saying,
“something that will allow us to reach the spirit world. If Julia Hoffman is still in this time, we
should be able to –”
Her
voice had been cut off by a pantherish scream, and a reddish streak flying
through the air struck her and knocked her off her feet. Barnabas cried her name, but it didn’t
matter; “Tego!” she shrieked, and the
attacking creature was thrown backward by an invisible fist. Angelique used her powers to pull herself
upright; her eyes were black with her fury; “It’s Roxanne, Barnabas,” she
gasped, and pointed, and Barnabas saw that she was correct.
Wrapped
in a dress of flowing violet, the woman they had both encountered in 1968 and
knew as Roxanne Drew bared her fangs and hissed. Angelique raised her right hand, contorting
her fingers until black energy crackled between them and prepared to throw
it. “You shouldn’t be here,” Roxanne
said, and Angelique paused. The
vampire’s face was streaked with blood-laced tears.
“How
do you know this?” she cried, and her eyes flicked to Barnabas’.
“You
are not Valerie Collins,” Roxanne said.
“And you …” She sniffled and
wiped the blood away with the back of her hand, then pointed with it at
Barnabas. “You are like me. And I don’t
understand.” She pulled at her titian
curls which, Angelique thought with a mental sniff, had surely seen better
days. “You shouldn’t be here!” she screamed, then lunged forward again.
“Obruro,” Angelique said and held up one
hand, and Roxanne stopped mid-air as if snared.
She struggled, but the air had become thick and held her firmly in
place. “I asked you a question,”
Angelique said, daring to take a step closer to the wriggling vampire. “Why do you say these things? How do you know we don’t belong here?”
Roxanne’s
face glowed with hatred. “I am
immortal,” she said at last. “And so, I
assume are you. Because I exist in
1968. And so do you. You don’t have to deny it; it’s true.”
“You
overheard us,” Angelique said. “You
heard us talking about the future, you must have!”
“I
didn’t,” Roxanne snapped. “Even if I
didn’t know, I would suspect. You are different than you used to be. Anyone with any connection to the powers of
darkness could see it. You are no longer
Valerie Collins.”
“No,”
Angelique smirked. “I’m really not.”
“Angelique,”
Barnabas said urgently. “Please. Send her away, do whatever you have to do,
but we need to be alone.”
“I
should destroy you,” Angelique said, “for what you’ve done … for what you will
do.”
Roxanne’s
face lit up. “So I am to exist in the
future?”
Angelique
leaned in close. “Not if I destroy you
right now,” she purred. “I could light
you up like a Christmas tree, Roxanne Drew, and then you would never get to
1968.”
“Angelique,”
Barnabas hissed, “you mustn’t. You don’t
know what you’ll change!”
Angelique
hesitated, then locked eyes with the vampire.
Hers were red-rimmed, feral. Her
face retained a grayish tinge; obviously she’s learned a beauty tip or two over
the next hundred and thirty years, Angelique thought, and pulled away. “True enough,” she said at last. “You’ve been spared, Miss Drew. For the moment. Don’t anger me again, for I may forget myself
and incinerate you without another thought.”
“I
dreamed it,” Roxanne said sullenly, and Angelique hesitated.
“Dreams?”
“Everyone
at Collinwood has been dreaming of the future,” she said. “Flora told me, and so did Desmond.”
“You
… you fed off them!” Barnabas cried, horrified.
Roxanne
licked her fangs. “Only a small taste,”
she said. “A few drops. They’ll never miss it.” Her expression darkened. “Do you think I would willingly pass on this
curse? That I would do to others what
Gerard Stiles did to me?”
“Yes,”
Angelique said instantly.
“You’re
wrong,” Roxanne said, dropping her eyes.
“I wouldn’t. But I’m not entirely me any longer, am I.”
Barnabas
and Angelique exchanged looks. “That …
that isn’t necessarily true,” Barnabas said.
“You can fight, Roxanne. You
don’t have to give in to it.”
Roxanne laughed, a
terrible sound, dry, papery. “But you
don’t know … the power. I have never
felt such power before. It’s like … it’s
like I’m connected to this force. A voice that whispers inside me. And when I listen to it, there are no more
doubts, no more questions. I am free as
no woman has ever been free before.”
“Roxanne,”
Barnabas said gently, “I do
know. I understand what you’re
feeling. I know what it is … the guilt …
the pain … gnawing at you. The hunger –
it is everything. A cruel master. The whip lashes out. And you obey.
But you cannot let it control you.
You are nothing but an animal otherwise.” He paused, thinking. “It isn’t freedom. It is death.
Eternal. And it will take away
everyone you ever loved or ever will love.”
“Samantha
is dead,” Roxanne said. “I know
this. But there others. Tad … my brother Randall … I don’t want to
lose them. And the voice – that force, that power – it tells me that I can have them forever, if I choose. I can make them like me.”
“You
could,” Barnabas said slowly. “But my
dear Roxanne – think about what this life would do to them.”
“They
could be young and beautiful forever,” she said.
“At
what price? You will offer them nothing
but death. Anyone you choose to bring
over into this life: that’s all you can
give them. They will kill. You
will kill.”
“I
didn’t kill Flora. I didn’t kill
Desmond.”
“They
will come to you,” Barnabas said sadly.
“Trust me. They will come to you
whether you will them to or not. They
will force you to drink. That is part of
the curse as well; everyone you love …”
And Angelique sighed heavily and dropped her eyes. “… will die.
Unless you leave this place soon.”
“I
can be different than you,” Roxanne said with a toss of her red curls. “I won’t make the same mistakes you made.”
“Perhaps
that is true. But you will never know.”
“Do
you?” Her eyes lit up. “If we all exist in the future, you must know
something about me.”
“We
don’t,” Angelique said shortly, then added furiously, “Except that you are
vicious and cruel. So you have learned
nothing in a century and a half after all.”
“Perhaps
I can,” Roxanne said. “Perhaps I’ll be
different. Perhaps that why you’ve come
back to this time.”
“I
wish I could help you,” Barnabas said softly, and touched Roxanne’s cheek. She pulled back and bared her fangs.
“Leave
me alone,” she said. Her eyes glowed a
sunken red. “I want to destroy you
both. I know I should. The dreams told me so.”
“These
dreams,” Angelique said. “Tell me about
them.”
“I
will tell you nothing,” Roxanne
snarled.
Angelique’s
eyes flared black. “Dicet verum ex mortuis,” she said.
“In
the dreams, I look differently,” Roxanne said instantly, though her face
twitched black with hate, forced as she was by Angelique’s spell to speak the
truth. “I wear trousers like a man. In the dreams, I wield a sacred dagger. I use it to torture you,” and her eyes flicked to Barnabas, softened for a moment, then
flicked back to Angelique. “I wish I
could use it on you.”
“You
can’t,” Angelique tittered.
“Oh,
I would,” Roxanne said, then the spell overtook her again. “In the dreams, I gather other immortals to
me. We seek to stop a great evil from
rising. But something terrible happens
to them. And I am left alone.”
“Why
do you want to destroy us? What did the
dreams tell you to do?”
“To
find you,” Roxanne said. “And to kill
you. It was me, myself in the future,
whispering to me. That I should destroy
you both and save the future. That if
you aren’t allowed to return to your own time, this great evil will lose its
power and fade.”
“She’s
right,” Barnabas said softly, and Angelique spun to face him, mouth agape. “Well, she is!” he said defensively. “Think, Angelique. The Enemy obviously needs me for some dire
purpose that it will be unable to fulfill if I never come back.”
“And
… and me?” Angelique’s lower lip
trembled. “Would you see me destroyed as
well, Barnabas?” He hesitated, and, her
voice heavy with the threat of sudden tears, she cried, “You would, wouldn’t
you!”
“Some
sacrifices are necessary,” he muttered.
“Why
do I always think you will change? Why
do I always think you’ll be different?
It doesn’t matter to you what I’ve given up, what I have sacrificed in
the name of …” She bit the words
back. “I should leave you here, return
to the present by myself.” She laughed,
that old familiar laughter, and he looked away, his expression pained. “It would be no more than what you deserve. But I would not be so cruel. Because I have
changed.” She softened. “And I think you know it. I’m not a fool, Barnabas. You would sacrifice yourself for your family,
wouldn’t you, which means you would sacrifice others. Even … even your precious Victoria Winters.”
He
looked up, surprised. “It is not like
you to speak her name,” he said.
“When
you arrived in 1897 five days ago,” Angelique said, “Victoria Winters was
alive. You might just as easily have
left that room and saved her. Why not? You could have gone away with her. Turned her into what you are. You might have lived together very happily.”
“I
couldn’t do that to her,” Barnabas whispered.
“Exactly. You sacrifice your own happiness time and
time again, and I don’t believe it’s just for the world. It’s for your family.”
Barnabas
said nothing.
Angelique
put a tender hand on his shoulder.
“Believe that I want to save them as well,” she whispered. “For you, my darling. For you.
I have made sacrifices. And I
will continue to make them.”
“I
won’t destroy you, Barnabas Collins,” Roxanne said suddenly. “Will that even the score? I know that I am fated to do something
dreadful to you in the future. I won’t
allow myself to do it. I’ll change it;
I’ll stop myself. Because you have been
kind to me.”
“That’s
very big of you,” Angelique laughed.
Roxanne’s
eyes darkened. “But you, witch,” she
said. “I will destroy you the first
opportunity I have.”
“Good
luck with that,” Angelique said, and waved her hand. Roxanne flew backward and struck the wall
beside the fireplace. She was up in a
moment snarling, and Angelique threw another energy bolt at her head, and she
ducked, and Barnabas found himself helpless, which was where this little
melodrama began. “Missed me, ducky,”
Roxanne grinned, and Angelique, returning her grin, said, “Only once,” and more
magical energy flew, and here they were, right back where they started, locked
in their eternal battle.
“Stop
it, Angelique!” Barnabas roared suddenly, and threw himself between the witch
and the vampire woman. “Let her go! We can’t change the future any more than we
already have!”
“Look
well upon my face,” Roxanne hissed from behind his shoulder, “for you will see
it again! I swear it!” And she faded away.
Angelique
relaxed. “I hate when does that,” she said.
“What
do we do now?” Barnabas said. He was
exhausted, and he needed blood. The
curse that Angelique placed on him before her present-time counterpart
possessed her own spirit (already possessing Valerie Collins, and was this
sane? Was any of it sane?) was different somehow than the one she used in 1796: the bat was inside him now, a living entity,
and it starved, and so he
starved. What will happen when we return
to 1969? he thought desolated, then, even more desolately: if
we return?
“We
will do what we came to this house to do tonight,” Angelique said, “and then we
will return to Collinwood. To the West
Wing. And then you know what we must
do.”
“I
don’t,” Barnabas said. “How will we release
your spirit from the body of Valerie Collins?
You said it would require some great trauma; that, if your spirit felt
it was in danger, it would flee …”
She
watched him silently.
His
eyes widened. “Oh Angelique, no. That is too –”
“Dangerous?”
she said. “Perhaps. But you feel the hunger now, don’t you? And it’s my fault. It’s always my fault. Let me make up for it just this once,
Barnabas.”
“But
Valerie …”
“Once
you leave this time, the wounds will disappear from her throat,” she said. “She will be as she was before, and we will
not have destroyed her life.”
His
eyes narrowed. “How exactly will I leave
this time? You haven’t exactly been
forthright …”
Her
eyes sparkled back at his. “I have a
plan, Barnabas, trust me. But for now …
I must leave a little token behind, something for a rainy day.” She held out her hand, and Barnabas watched,
amazed, as a tiny hand mirror floated toward her down the staircase.
“Yours?”
he asked, wide-eyed.
“Of
course,” she said. “I used it for
scrying when I was a servant in this house, and I hid it before we were
married. Nicholas schooled me well in
the black arts, but I learned more on my own.
And as a girl, I was fascinated with mirrors.” She smiled at her own reflection and traced
the glass lightly with the tip of one finger.
“They can be very powerful. Why,
certain primitive peoples believed that a mirror could steal your soul if it
captured your reflection.” Her smile
grew wider, more poisonous. “Which is a
theory I plan to put to the test soon … very soon …”
2
“She
must have killed him too,” Edith said, her voice trembling just the right
amount. Her father-in-law, his eyes
narrowed with sorrow, placed a palsied hand on her shoulder and patted her
gently. She took his hand between hers
and held it. Tears ran freely down her
cheeks. “Just before you came down the
stairs. I was in our room, otherwise I
would have been down there too, and then Daphne … Daphne w-would’ve …” Her voice dissolved into more tears.
“You
poor thing,” Daniel said.
“She
wasn’t human,” Edith whispered. “That’s
the only answer I can possibly think of.
She was a monster.”
“We
will never speak of Daphne again,” Daniel said sternly. “It will be as Ben suggested: we will tell the rest of the family that
Quentin and Daphne ran away after a whirlwind marriage. They will never return. Better that minor scandal than the
alternative.”
“And
… and Gabriel?” Her voice hiccupped
perfectly.
“He
suffered an accident,” Daniel said. His
own eyes were wet in a way that his adopted father Joshua’s never were. The man was stone, Daniel thought, when his
children were taken away from him. And
mine … my beautiful boys, both my beautiful, beautiful boys … “A terrible accident,” he said after
gathering his strength for a moment.
“Trying to maneuver in the dark.
The boys will have to be told.”
“And
the rest of the family, of course,” Edith said.
“Valerie and Tad. The contingent
at Rose Cottage, of course. And Barnabas
and Julia …”
Daniel
frowned. “Barnabas? Julia?
What are these names? Who are you
talking about, woman?”
Edith’s
eyebrows flew up. “Why, our cousins from
England,” she said. Of course, she
thought; Daniel has been locked away in the tower the entire duration of their
stay. “I’d forgotten you hadn’t met
them. They’re staying at the Old House
somehow, though of course it’s in terrible condition …” Her words faded away as she took in the
expression of horror on Daniel’s papery face.
“B-Barnabas,”
Daniel wheezed, clutching his heart.
“No! That isn’t possible! He was never to be released!”
Edith
frowned. “Released? Daniel – Father – your heart …” Inside, she was smirking. Wouldn’t it be simply perfect if dear daddy
Daniel dropped dead of a heart attack at this moment, right at her feet? But no, she thought, sighing, after all the
other deaths at Collinwood this night, surely the loss of the Collins patriarch
would direct prying eyes in places she’d rather they not examine. Namely, her.
It was easy enough to cover the purple bruises left in a ring on her
throat in the wake of Gabriel’s strangling, but she mustn’t forget that a
warlock had been burned to ashes on the beach this very night; it wouldn’t do,
she decided, to rile the villagers any further.
The old man gazed at her stonily for
a long moment before he finally spoke.
“Gabriel should be the one to hold the dreadful knowledge of the Secret,
Edith. It’s for a man’s ears, really,
but Gabriel is dead, and you are the only one left. Daphne and Quentin are dead as well, and Tad
is only a boy. Yes, it must be you,
Edith Collins. And you must keep this
Secret until the day you die, because the horror ... the horror must never be unleashed. It must be contained, or it will bring
suffering and death upon us all. The
Secret is the true curse of the Collins family, Edith, and it will destroy us
if allowed. Keep the Secret, Edith, and
pass it on only when you must. Only when
you must. Because it will destroy you if
you let it.”
“But what is the Secret?” Of course she’d heard Gabriel speak of it –
hidden knowledge, he told her, bitterly assuming; hidden knowledge withheld
from him that would be passed to Quentin upon their father’s death, something
of great power or value – but the fool had never been able to find out exactly
what it was.
Daniel
drew a breath. “It is Barnabas Collins,”
he said.
“Barnabas
Collins went to England in 1796,” she said.
“That’s what his son told us …”
Her eyes widened. “Are you saying
that this Barnabas is the same
Barnabas who lived at Collinwood when you were a boy?” Black sorcery, she thought;
so Nicholas and I were not the only practitioners at Collinwood.
“He
was placed under a curse,” Daniel said, “set upon him by a witch.”
Pieces
were clicking into place. Edith, who had
grown upon in the village and who, long ago, set her sights on obtaining a
place in the Collins firmament, knew the legends surrounding the great house on
the hill. The witch Angelique, for one;
children whispered about how she would catch you in the dark and rip out your
eyeballs and your tongue if you dared to walk down a certain deserted lane by
yourself after dark; child Edith herself had told this story to her friends by
candlelight, long after they should have been in bed, embellishing here and
there. And I never dreamed that I was
destined to become a witch myself, she thought now, and wished madly that she
could remember any actual details
about Angelique. Because Angelique is
here right now, Edith thought, somehow possessing Valerie’s body.
And I threatened to destroy her.
“This
curse,” Edith said slowly. “What was its
nature?”
“Dreadful,”
Daniel said instantly. “A black stain
upon Barnabas’ soul, upon the soul of the entire family. I fought it my
entire life, but obviously I failed.”
Tears, more genuine than Edith’s, spilled down his wrinkled cheeks. “My poor sister Millicent succumbed, and my
poor wife Harriet, and now my boys … my beautiful, beautiful boys …” He put his hands over his face.
Edith
rolled her eyes. “There, there,” she
forced herself to say as comfortingly as possible, and patted his
shoulder. “But Daniel … the curse …?”
He
peered at her from between his fingers.
“The curse made Barnabas one of the living dead,” he said huskily. “He died and was buried but he came back to
us. Poor Josette threw herself from the
cliffs when he came to her, tried to make her … what he was.”
Which was what? Edith wanted to scream,
but she watched him with feigned patience instead.
“Millicent
became his victim.” His breathing was
becoming heavier, and his chest heaved.
“And after old Joshua had him chained, she died. And … and she came back.” His voice cracked. “Oh Millicent … my poor, poor Millicent …”
“Came
back,” Edith said urgently, “as what?”
“It’s
too horrible.”
“Tell
me!”
“We
drove a stake through her heart,” Daniel wheezed, “Ben Stokes … he did it …
burned her body … scattered the ashes …”
“A
stake through the heart?” A terrible
suspicion was dawning in her thoughts; more legends, whispered around the fire
… “What did Joshua do to Barnabas?” She dug her fingers into his shoulder and he
dropped his hands, staring at her with astonishment. “Tell me!”
“Edith,
you are hurting me –”
She
felt her eyes wanting to darken to the same obsidian black that consumed
Nicholas; an amazing development in the endless time that had passed while she
and the Devil dickered in hell, but she forced the darkness back; mustn’t give
away my hand now, she thought, and withdrew her fingers. “I’m sorry, Father,” she said in as
respectful a tone as she could muster. “Please. I must know.
You must tell me the exact nature of the Secret!”
Daniel
was shivering uncontrollably. “The
curse,” he said, and licked his lips.
“The curse made Barnabas one of the living dead. But he could live only at night. Each day, at cock crow, he was forced to
withdraw into his coffin. It was this
coffin that Joshua chained and locked away in a secret room inside the Collins
mausoleum at Eagle Hill cemetery –”
Edith’s eyes widened. “— never to
be opened again. But if it has … oh, if
he has escaped …” He gritted his teeth
against the pain that she could was now quite visible on his face. “He must never be allowed to escape! He must be destroyed, Edith! Barnabas Collins must be destroyed!”
The
front doors of Collinwood were opening.
Neither noticed.
“Why,
Daniel?” she prodded him. “What did the
curse do to him?”
“Barnabas
Collins,” Daniel said, drawing a deep breath, “Barnabas Collins is … is …” He looked over her shoulder, and his eyes
widened, bulged in their sockets. All
the blood fell from his face. Edith
turned slowly, following his gaze, where two people stood in the foyer, staring
at them with curiosity. “Vampire!”
Daniel shrieked, and leveled a finger at Barnabas himself, who stood beside
Angelique, both frozen in horror.
“Daniel,”
Barnabas whispered. “No. Oh no.”
“VAMPIRE!”
Daniel howled again.
And
Edith, despite herself, began to laugh.
3
1969
The
shadows at Eagle Hill Cemetery were long, as, he thought with a sigh, they were
always long. The sun had set only a few
minutes ago, and there was still snow on the ground, which was not unusual for
late March, and the chill in the air reached through his Collins-fancy top coat
and pinched.
What am I doing here?
Roxanne. Her
command. Back at the Old House, Nathan Forbes
was still lounging where he’d left him, sleeping, sated. “My god,” Forbes had gasped after their third
go, the most ferocious – the most satisfying – of the lot, “my god,
you’re insatiable.” Then, grinning, “Way worse than me.” Sleep followed quickly, and Roxanne’s command
took hold and pulled him from the bed (no
one must see me), down the stairs, and out into the chill late-afternoon
air.
Now
the sun set had set, and everything was blue.
Why am I here? What does she want of me?
“You
will know,” she had said, her fangs glinting, “when the time comes. It’s a
secret ‘til then.” A quick kiss on the
lips and she vanished, and with her the memory of her … until now. Until he left Nathan sleeping as the sun
began its descent behind the hills and the purple shadows came creeping.
Dark, don’t catch me here.
What
did that mean?
He
thought of Barnabas, lost somewhere in the past, and he thought he understood.
Snow
crunched under his feet as he made his way among the tombstones. Was there one in particular he should be
searching for? He didn’t know.
Why
did I let her catch me? he thought desolately; her and him, both? Both vampires
in their own way, he supposed, Roxanne a far more lethal species than
Nathan. But still. Chris, if he discovered what they’d done,
would be furious.
It
was nearly full dark now. A night bird
screamed somewhere over his head; the flutter of wings, a singing in this new
night, a sound he knew very well. An icy
finger stirred against his heart.
There
it was. The tombstone for which he’d
been searching. Ancient, the words very
nearly wiped away by over a century of seasons.
His
eyes widened.
A
shovel leaned against the pitted stone.
“No,”
he whispered, his breath a silver plume in the darkness.
But
his fingers were already encircling the wood of the shovel’s handle, lifting
it, feeling its heft.
He
glanced down again at the stone, and its name.
He didn’t recognize the name, but the date … the date …
VALERIE
COLLINS, the stone proclaimed.
1810-1840. GOD GRANT SHE LYE
STILL.
He
didn’t have time to think. The wings
fluttered above his head; he closed his eyes for a moment and sighed; the
wings; then, as she had commanded, he sank the shovel into the grave’s stony,
unyielding soil.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
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