If I were able to time travel 100 years into the future and find a descendant of mine writing about the never-ending popularity of vampires, I wouldn’t be surprised one bit. There’s nothing trendy about vampires because they are, in some ways, our greatest metaphor; able to stand in for nearly whatever our storytellers want to throw at them. Though according to Joseph Caldwell—one of the original writers on Dark Shadows—vampires are “a metaphor for compulsive sex!” And if that doesn’t explain the immortal popularity of the fanged ones, I don’t know what does!
Recently, I was lucky enough to sit down with Caldwell and discuss the origins of Barnabas Collins, how to write a good soap opera, and why the motto in the Dark Shadows writers’ room was “Stop me before I suck more!”
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