Rushing home to watch Dark Shadows after school was something my children all did–and I watched it right along with them. Oh, it was cheesy but so much fun. Barnabas Collins was creepy and scary. We could hardly wait to see what happened next.

We had so much fun with it, when my high school Camp Fire Girls were earning money for a trip to the Grand Canyon, we wrote and put on a musical called Dark Shadows. My oldest girl played Barnabas Collins and was effective enough that when she jumped down into the audience to bite one of the audience members on the neck, all the kids screamed and a few tried to run away.

I can’t remember all the songs we incorporated into the musical or even anything about the plot. I know we had terrific sound effects, lots of thunder and the light being clicked off and on for lightning. What I do remember is the ending which more or less was that the whole reason they had so much trouble was that it was always dark, and the finale song was “Let the Sunshine In.”

Now Johnny Depp is going to play Barnabas Collins in the Dark Shadows movie. I saw a clip and it look like it’ll be great fun.

My daughter has asked that I plan to see Dark Shadows with her. I hope to do that. What memories it will bring back.

Marilyn