Lessons Barnabas Collins Taught Me

Happy Halloween!

Tonight I'll be kicking back with my favorite spooky/creepy videos in honor of Halloween: Dracula, The Wolfman, The Mummy...the originals from the 1930s and 1940s, not any of the remakes.

And my favorite guilty pleasure of all time, Dark Shadows.  Ah, the cursed Collins family, residing in the creepy mansion in New England.  Along with vampires, ghosts, werewolves, and witches.  Good times.

So here's my salute to Dark Shadows.  Happy Halloween, everyone!

Lessons Barnabas Collins Taught Me

1.  All doors leading to bad situations creak loudly.  If you hear a creaking door, head the for nearest exit.

2.  If the vampire's human accomplice offers to spare your life if you join them, sign on for the team.  It'll buy you some time to work on Plan B.

3.  If a ghost warns you to stay away from the basement because there's danger there, take her advice and stay away.  After all, she's trying to help.  And the basement might be where she became a ghost in the first place.

4.  Never call the sheriff and tell him to meet you in 15 minutes because you have something incredible to tell him.  Go straight to his office and tell him right away.  Better yet, do your research in his waiting room.  There's safety in numbers.

5.  If a stranger -- who looks exactly like an ancestor in a painting on your wall -- shows up at the door claiming to be a long lost cousin, carbon date the lint on his suit.  Be especially suspicious if he follows up "Hello" with a request to occupy a house located on the estate grounds.

6.  If the town doctor finds a body drained of blood with two tiny tooth marks in the neck and wonders aloud about the cause of death, get another doctor.

7.  If you take a job as a governess with an odd family living next door to a vampire, just remember that bad things happen to other people but governesses live until the end of the story.

8.  If you walk into the basement of the house next door and find a man lying in a coffin, run for the nearest exit.

9.  If you notice an odd resemblance between yourself and a portrait hanging in the oldest house on the estate, do not accept any invitations to dinner, tea, seances, or any other events taking place after sundown.

10.  If you are engaged to be married to an heiress and a beautiful witch announces that she wants you to marry her instead, drop to one knee a propose.  It'll save a whole lot of trouble later on.

Finally, here are a couple of videos.

Willie Loomis breaks into the Collins family crypt and finds Barnabas Collins.



The Dark Shadows spoof, "Misty Dawn."