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Reviews
Dark Shadows 30th Anniversary Tribute (1996)
Hate Lurks In The Shadows
Dark Shadows is my favorite TV show from my childhood. Imagine how I felt when I attended a few Dark Shadows Festivals and found well over half the attendees making a public performance out of their refusal to be civil to each other.
The hatemongering was rampant. I myself was targeted for vicious hate campaigns that came from people I didn't even know. Two people who claimed to "like" me asked me to join their hate campaigns against the people THEY didn't like. It was nearly impossible to find people who weren't actively involved in this kind of behavior.
Seeing such a large group of middle aged people behaving this way so gleefully and publicly has got to be one of the saddest sights I've ever seen. After experiencing this at three(count 'em, THREE!!!) Dark Shadows Festivals, I resolved to never go again.
Most recently, I permanently logged off a Dark Shadows message board for the same, sad reason.
This video, produced by the Dark Shadows Festival organizers, presents these events as though they were love-ins from the 1960s, the years of the show's heyday. It is being marketed as a "documentary" but is obviously an infomercial.
It is false advertising of the worst kind.
Next Year in Jerusalem (1997)
Pretty Good Script
This is a beautifully written story about gay romantic love vs religious conflict. This was obviously a no budget production, and looks it. But the story is so deep and complex, the dialogue so well written, that the cheesy production values are easily overlooked. Georgina Spelvin, a one time porn queen, is cast against type as an Orthodox Jew. She is superb. Whoda thunk that a porn star could give such a layered, dramatic performance? Peter J Byrnes as Charlie & Lindel Sandlin as the Rabbi's daughter are also extremely good. And I enjoyed seeing the late soap star Louis Edmonds(Dark Shadows, All My Children) in a small role. Hats off to the director for presenting such a good story with no resources. -----Adam Garcia, LA CA