Editorials
A Tribute to Dan Curtis: King of Television Horror
What do vampire Barnabas Collins, the Zuni fetish doll, investigative reporter Carl Kolchak, and the haunted Allardyce family home have in common? Producer and director Dan Curtis, the king of television horror. In the era where series and movies could be event television, particularly in the late ‘60s- early ‘70s, Curtis dominated the small screen. Especially in horror. Decades later, the landscape of television has changed dramatically; DVRs, VOD, and various streaming services means made-for-TV movies, miniseries, and the like have fallen largely by the wayside. Or rather, they’re not the momentous occasions they once were. Even still, Curtis remains a pioneer and a major influence in the genre, then and now.
When the Curtis created gothic soap opera Dark Shadows premiered in 1966 on ABC, it faced cancellation almost immediately. Set around in a fictional Maine town of Collinsport, inspired by a dream Curtis had, the series followed the bizarre and often supernatural occurrences that plagued the upper-class Collins family and those near to them. But the supernatural elements were a little slow to appear at first, with plots mostly centered around revenge and murder schemes. Six months in, critics deemed the soap too boring and it failed to gain traction with viewers. ABC warned Curtis that unless he turned the ratings around, Dark Shadows wasn’t going to air much longer. Since Curtis always wanted to do a vampire movie, he decided to write a vampire character for the show. Enter Barnabas Collins. The ratings turned around almost instantly, propelling the soap opera into an enduring cultural phenom that spanned five years, hundreds of episodes, a revival, spinoff films, and more.
Barbanas Collins entered Dark Shadows a typical creature of the night but quickly transformed into tortured antihero. His guilt over past misdeeds gave him a humanity that hadn’t really been portrayed in vampires before, at least not to the extent and depth that over 1,000 episodes allows.
After the series ended in 1971, due to cancellation, Curtis teamed up with horror author and screenwriter Richard Matheson for TV movie The Night Stalker in 1972. Curtis produced, and Matheson adapted the screenplay from a novel by Jeffrey Grant Rice. It introduced Darren McGavin as Carl Kolchak, an intrepid reporter investigating a series of murders in Las Vegas. When he discovers the killer is a vampire, well, he runs into a whole new set of problems. The Night Stalker became the highest rated TV movie of all time (at that time), prompting an immediate follow up with The Night Strangler which saw Kolchak hot on the trails of a 144-year-old alchemist that slayed women for blood. While it didn’t reach the same rating highs of its predecessor, it was still popular enough for ABC to evolve the planned third film into a new series instead. Kolchak: The Night Stalker was a short-lived series, and didn’t involve Curtis or Matheson, but it heavily inspired horror shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The X-Files. None of which might have existed without Curtis and Matheson’s original, mega-popular made-for-TV movie.
Next Curtis terrified TV viewers with The Norliss Tapes, a creepy movie that sees a Sanford Evans trying to piece together the whereabouts of his missing friend, David Norliss, through a series of tapes explaining his recent occult investigation. He reteamed with Matheson a year later to direct Scream of the Wolf before finally getting a chance to direct the vampire film he always wanted in 1974’s Dracula. Starring Jack Palance as Dracula, Curtis’ take on Bram Stoker’s classic tale was the first to connect Dracula to Vlad the Impaler and should’ve been far more popular and successful had it not been for presidential addresses bumping its initial broadcast to a later time. It holds up well, and Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 adaptation seems to owe a lot to it.
After producing a handful of other television movies centered around iconic literary horror figures, Curtis produced and directed a horror anthology movie based on some of Matheson’s short stories. Starring Karen Black, who played four different characters among the three segments, Trilogy of Terror induced nightmares for generations thanks to final segment “Amelia” and the Zuni fetish doll. The movie didn’t just create one of the most terrifying dolls in history that likely set the bar for killer dolls that came after, it helped establish Black as a horror mainstay, too.
Curtis’ next major contribution to horror set the standard for many of the common tropes found in haunted house movies. It also marked a rare theatrical release, as well as a reteam with Karen Black. Written, produced, and directed by Curtis, based on a 1973 novel of the same name, Burnt Offerings presented a unique type of haunting for the Rolf family when a bargain vacation home turns their summer plans into a nightmare. While the movie has since earned a following, Burnt Offerings didn’t perform well at the box office and marked the last horror theatrical release for Curtis.
In the ‘90s, Curtis attempted to revive Dark Shadows in a more streamlined, prime time series. The initial ratings deemed it a huge success, but NBC kept interrupting or bumping the episodes due to the onset of the Gulf War, causing a massive struggle to retain viewership. So this revival, despite being well received, only lasted twelve episodes. For USA network, Curtis directed sequel Trilogy of Terror II, for which he also wrote the segment “He Who Kills.” This time Lysette Anthony was tasked with playing various characters throughout the three segments, and yes, the Zuni doll does make a reappearance. In 2005, Curtis served as a consulting producer on the short-lived remake Night Stalker, based on Kolchak: The Night Stalker.
Based on the legacy of Dark Shadows alone, Dan Curtis could’ve stopped there and still remained an influential voice in horror. But he didn’t. He dedicated a large portion of his career to the genre, delivering memorable movie after movie and series that refused to leave the pop culture collective no matter how short-lived. His work instilled fear in viewers, but he also dared to give his monsters and characters a complexity they hadn’t really had before. Vampires that became Shakespearean in their tragic histories, fearless yet flawed reporters who sacrifice their own happiness for the sake of truths, and even haunted houses became nuanced characters in Curtis’ hands. His ability to scare was equally matched by his compelling characters that were so relatable. Television programming may be widely different now than it was in the ‘60s and ‘70s, but many horror series released in the decades since were influenced in some way by his pioneering work. He’s more than just the king of television horror; Curtis is a master horror storyteller and a pillar of the genre.
In this day and age, the word “troll” is often used to describe various online nuisances. Yet as abundant and irksome as the modern troll can be, they aren’t usually as fearsome as their mythological counterparts. I’m not talking about the small and gentler versions that have become more common to see in media. No, there are much bigger and scarier trolls out there—and André Øvredal’s movie Troll Hunter is one of the best places to find them.
It doesn’t take long for Troll Hunter (or Trolljegeren) to dump the Blair Witch Project-esque setup and aim for something a lot fresher. The trajectory of the story is augmented by Otto Jespersen’s character Hans, the titular Troll Hunter. The second he comes barreling out of the deep, dark woods and shouts “troll” at the camera, this movie takes a turn into what feels like uncharted territory. Not only subject-wise, but also conceptually.
For fantastical and made-up subject matter in cinema, found footage is a fast way to add a guise of believability. After all, what we accept to be the most crucial aspect of documentaries—the truth—rubs off on pseudo-documentaries, despite our understanding of the pretense involved. That is what Øvredal delivered with Troll Hunter: a movie so convincing that some viewers wondered if trolls really do exist. So, had this been straightforwardly made, it likely wouldn’t have been as effective. Conventional narratives would be more inclined to treat something like trolls as flat out unreal, and never try to convince the audience to think otherwise.
Hans petrifies the three-headed Tusseladd troll.
The viewers, like the characters trailing Hans, are quickly thrown into the deeper end of that extraordinary story. They have to process all this new information while staying on the go. So, although there is no significant amount of meandering, narratively or physically, there is still a good amount of atmosphere, not to mention tension building. It’s never anything frightful, but then again, Troll Hunter isn’t your standard offering of horror; it’s more on the low end of the dark fantasy spectrum. We aren’t ever spirited away to a faraway world—we stay in rather familiar surroundings, as well as dip into those less so. The outcome is a movie where you’re constantly more in awe than in terror.
As fantasy fiction might do, Troll Hunter prefers not to deal with incredulity. There is no time to waste on doubt, as interviewer Thomas (Glenn Erland Tosterud), soundperson Johanna (Johanna Mørck), and cameraman Kalle (Tomas Alf Larsen) all follow Hans around, recording whatever this character is willing to reveal about his bizarre job. Of course, the Troll Hunter himself is not an open book; in that respect, the diegetic documentary fails to fully capture and unpack the more interesting of its two subjects. Yes, all those giant, monstrous trolls are indeed incredible, but understandably, your mind wanders to their pursuer. What kind of person signs up for this gig and then chooses to stick with it for so long?
Reviews have called out Troll Hunter for its lack of character development. In regard to Thomas and his fellow documentarians, that criticism is valid, but bear in mind, they aren’t the focus of the story, either. Meanwhile, Hans is a well-crafted character. At least better than first realized. Before he was introduced, Hans had already grown tired of the troll grind. Fed up with that low compensation for his services, resentful of the bureaucracy, and wanting to expose his employer on a large scale, Hans’ discontent is glaring.
Then there are those finer details about the Troll Hunter, such as that indifference to both the natural splendor of his everyday surroundings and the affections of an obviously smitten colleague, that also suggest some level of despondency. So it is fair to say this movie doesn’t feature any sizable growth for its characters; however, the namesake isn’t underwritten. No doubt, putting a real-life character like Otto Jespersen in that role is partly why Hans is so fascinating—maybe even relatable.
Otto Jespersen as Hans the Troll Hunter.
There is always a small risk whenever using the term “mockumentary” to describe a found-footage movie, as the word could imply humor where there is none. In the case of Troll Hunter, the term’s usage is appropriate. Some folks have claimed the English-dubbed version has the more comedic tone, however, the Norwegian cut isn’t exactly humorless. Apart from the trolls’ absurd appearances, this is a movie where the characters nearly choke on the monsters’ farts, and Christians are like walking targets. Hans’ complete apathy towards everything is another cause of laughter. Overall, the comedy is intentionally dry and inconsistent. Unfunny, though? Absolutely not.
In a movie where endemic creatures are maltreated, as well as disavowed from living freely and peacefully, it’s hard not to notice the ecological message buried beneath the story. In addition to that is the unmistakable political satire. There is this whole business about intrusive and unsightly power lines—like trolls, they’re big blemishes on the land—that leads to what is perhaps the movie’s funniest moment. The scene in question is that one where certain electric lines, the ones secretly being used to keep the trolls at bay, go in a loop and don’t actually send power to any residents. Yet the monitors of said lines don’t find this at all weird. So it stands to reason that Øvredal was having a go at those who accept the government’s doings without question.
Looking past the fact that trolls aren’t actually real, this movie is an enlightening source of information. And not just for international audiences; Norwegians, too, get schooled about their homeland’s own mythology. It’s also evident from everything on screen that Øvredal and his crew were enthusiastic about the topic. The creature designs are the most indicative of that zeal; those imaginative yet myth-accurate manifestations are equally amusing and grotesque. One second you’re laughing at their phallic noses, the next you’re white-knuckling during a hairy sequence. Most surprisingly is how well the trolls’ visual effects hold up after fifteen years. It’s not all spotless, but on the whole, they remain impressive.
Vouching for a mockumentary about trolls isn’t easy, but those who do come around and give it a shot will more than likely be grateful for the recommendation. For Troll Hunter is a real find in that vast and varied genre we call “found footage“.
A bridge troll reaches up for food and finds Hans decked out in armor.
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