Time for another Terror Tuesday, so get your ghoul on…Screening: Dark Shadows 1840 sequence. With the new Johnny Depp/Tim Burton Dark Shadows movie gearing up for filming, I had the urge to rewatch some of the classic soap episodes, starting with one of my personal favorite arcs, the 1840s sequence in which Barnabas Collins and Julia Hoffman travel back in time via a staircase built by Quentin Collins to stop the future destruction of Collinwood by the malevolent ghost of Gerard Stiles. Once there they are confronted by the living head of warlock Judah Zachary and his reanimated headless body grabbing hapless victims in the woods. This is one of the best arcs, in my opinion, scary when I was a kid and lots of fun now. James Storm does an excellent job as Gerard and Kate Jackson, in her first role, brings a wonderful vulnerability to governess Daphne Harridge. The entire show is available on DVD and this arc starts on set 22.
In the Maine town of Bucksport lies the mysterious tomb of one Colonel Jonathan Buck. Our dear Colonel was cursed, it seems, by the deformed son of a witch. Hey, it happens. The curse goes something like, "Your Tomb shall bear the mark of a witch's foot for all eternity…" Pretty scary. Ok, maybe not so much. Legend has it that Buck was cursed because he burned a witch and the witch’s leg rolled out of the fire, and now that disembodied foot appears as a ghostly smudge on his monument. Supposedly the family has tried to clean it off and even replace the stone more than once, but the mark keeps coming back.
The problems with this tourist trap legend abound. John Buck was a justice of the peace born in 1719, without the authority to burn anyone, and lived long after any witch was put to death. As well, no witches were ever burned—they were hanged and none hanged in Maine. The monument upon which the footprint occurs was actually erected 75 years after his death, and no marks appear on his original tombstone in a different part of the cemetery.
Unfortunately our poor Colonel has been misrepresented and maligned for an act he never committed nor had an iota of knowledge about. He is the victim of a tourist trap, albeit an interesting spooky one. You can still see the monument if you wish…but alas the mythical burned witch will not be available…
Kicking Evil’s ass one demon at a time…
THE CHLOE FILES by Howard Hopkins
In the tradition of Sookie Stackhouse and Buffy, The Vampire Slayer…
In paperback from http://www.bn.com/ and http://www.amazon.com/
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