See House, Night of Dark Shadows on Movies! in July

Whoops! That's what I get for not checking the rest of the Movies! schedule. As it happens, both House of Dark Shadows and Night of Dark Shadows are airing on Movies! in July.  Here's the revised schedule. The times are EST.

July 3
1:30 p.m., House of Dark Shadows

3:45 p.m. Night of Dark Shadows

July 12

12 p.m., House of Dark Shadows

2:15 p.m. Night of Dark Shadows

July 14

4:40 p.m. 1776

8 p.m., House of Dark Shadows

July 15

8 p.m. Night of Dark Shadows

July 20

8:35 a.m., House of Dark Shadows

10:50 a.m. Night of Dark Shadows

Original, erroneous story follows ...

Night of Dark Shadows, everybody's second favorite Dark Shadows movie, is set to air four times next month on Movies! TV Network. Why July? Who knows! It's usually a month reserved for films as far flung as 1776 to Rocky IV, and Night of Dark Shadows screams a lot of things but "O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave" isn't one of them.

Speaking of 1776, exactly when does NoDS take place? The movie poster claims the flashback scenes happen 200 years ago, meaning 1771. Other summaries state 150 years ago, landing us on 1821. But the screenplay says Angelique died in 1810 ... which is a dud year in American history. The big news of 1810 was that the United States annexed West Florida shortly after it declared independence from Spain. In fact, it would be another decade before Maine, the location of all things Dark Shadows, would even become a state. That's one to grow on.

I've included 1776 in the schedule because I consider it to be an honorary Dark Shadows movie, thanks to the shows many cast members appearing in the film.

If you want to watch Night of Dark Shadows on Movies!, here's when it airs:

For more details, visit https://moviestvnetwork.com/movies/1765, and make sure to follow Will McKinley on Twitter. He's the guy who tipped me to this.

Hermes Press reissuing first Dark Shadows collection

How about some good news?

Hermes Press is bringing the first volume of its Dark Shadows series back into print. Back in 2010 the company began collecting the entire Gold Key comic book series into hardback, a collection that eventually spanned five hardcover books, a "best of" collection and a reprint of Gold Key's 1970 Dark Shadows Story Digest one-shot. All of these books have remained available in recent years, except for the first volume of the Gold Key comics collection. At the moment it's selling for $143 on Amazon, which is the cheapest it's been for years. No, really.

Hermes Press announced this morning that it's re-issuing the volume. While no release date is attached, the book is available for preorder for $49.99 at the company's website HERE. Go get it!

Pride Month 2020: Things should be better

Earlier this week, the Trump administration rolled back an Obama-era policy that protected LGBTQ+ patients from discrimination. In case the decision wasn't already cruel enough, the move came on the  fourth anniversary of the massacre of a nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, that killed 49 people. I suspect Trump had no idea of the significance of the date until he later saw it discussed on Fox News. But the people within his administrtion pulling his strings absolutely do know the significance, but that doesn't make the situation any less outrageous.

The pandemic has left me unplugged from my normal routines. It has also cancelled Pride Month activities across the world, and this is a community that understands better than any other about the consequences of a pandemic. By 1989 there were an estimated 100,000 AIDS cases in the United States. The World Health Organization estimated there were as many as 400,000 cases worldwide.

At least four actors appearing on Dark Shadows died from AIDS related illnesses.

A 2019 post on The CHS Facebook page has become a place for heated discussion this week, leading me to believe this is a problem people want to discuss. We're all a feeling isolated this summer. I've had more time than ever before to plan a formal dislogue ... but I've also felt disinclined to express myself on anything but the most selfish of topics. Silence seems prudent when anger and anxiety are fighting for the wheel. As a straight, white man my sullenness is an expensive luxury.

Worse, it makes me an accomplice.

If you want to help, please consider donating to The Trevor Project, a non-profit organization  focused on suicide prevention efforts among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning youth. You can find them online at https://give.thetrevorproject.org/give/63307/#!/donation/checkout

Meanwhile, here's what The CHS did last year for Pride Month. It's all as relevant now as it was a year ago. I've included an abstract, the author's name and a link to their entire piece.

Our thoughts and feelings are valid

Brooke Perrin: "In addition to the backlash fans receive for celebrating the queerness of the talent involved in creating Dark Shadows, queer fans are also criticized by our straight counterparts for daring to see ourselves reflected in “their” characters. Although queer representation is making leaps and bounds today historically, the LGBTQ community have little to no representation in the media we consume." http://www.collinsporthistoricalsociety.com/2019/06/pride-month.html

Queer Shadows

Alice Collins: "Dark Shadows helped me get through a lot of my questioning and early coming out years (Unfortunate truth: You never stop coming out, you come out to each new person you meet.) It’s been my solace, my safe place to be scared because the outside world is even scarier." http://www.collinsporthistoricalsociety.com/2019/06/pride-month-queer-shadows.html

Witches and Role Models
Laramie Dean: "Originally, I considered writing about the in-the-closet nature of Barnabas Collins and his lycanthropic cousin Quentin, who must pretend to be their own ancestors so their hapless twentieth century relatives don’t discover their – gasp! – true natures, but that seems rather on the nose; and anyway, I want to write about Angelique.  Because she’s my favorite." http://www.collinsporthistoricalsociety.com/2019/06/pride-month-witches-and-role-models.html