Cultural Studies Press

A Review of "The Physics of Dark Shadows" in Scary Monsters Magazine #68 by David Alexander Nahmod

Scare-eviews

by David Alexander Nahmod

Scary Reading: The Physics of Dark Shadows: Time Travel, ESP, and the Laboratory by Frank Borzellieri Foreword by Kathryn Leigh Scott, Preface by Amanda Trujillo (Cultural Studies Press)

DARK SHADOWS: Summer 1970. After years of pining for his beloved, long dead Josette, Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid) meets lovely Roxanne Drew (Donna Wandrey). He falls in love, not realizing Roxanne, like himself, is a vampire.

When Barnabas is forced to travel back to 1840 to prevent the deaths of the ghosts haunting Collinwood in 1970, he meets the human Roxanne. It is Barnabas himself who turns her. While he’s still in 1840, Roxanne is destroyed.

Wait! How can this be? If Barnabas turned Roxanne in 1840, how could he not have recognized her in 1970? And if she died in 1840, then what is Roxanne doing alive in 1970?

In his new book, The Physics of Dark Shadows, Frank Borzellieri offers plausible scientific explanations for time travel paradoxes such as these. There were many such inconsistencies on DARK SHADOWS, and they’ve baffled fans for years!

Borzellieri knows his stuff. A journalism professor at St. John’s University in New York, the committed DARK SHADOWS fan has also read many books on scientific theory and fact. Time travel, a staple on DARK SHADOWS, has already happened, and Borzellieri has the data to prove it!

Hauntings? Possessions? Séances? Sometimes they’re real, sometimes not. The author’s homework debunks phony myths like THE AMITYVILLE HORROR, but documents proven phenomena elsewhere, incidents that often mirror events that happened on DARK SHADOWS!

Parallel time? Scientists have been theorizing about this for years!

The Physics of Dark Shadows is not meant to be a scientific document. Borzellieri freely admits that he had a lot of fun writing it. But his prose was based on science fact, and this unusual, highly enjoyable entry in the canon of DARK SHADOWS literature offers fans real, sensible explanations for the questions left unanswered on the show.

Ever lovely DARK SHADOWS cast member Kathryn Leigh Scott, a personal friend of the author, provides a short, sweet introduction.

At only $9.95, The Physics of Dark Shadows is well worth a look!

Reprinted with the permission of Scary Monsters Magazine. This review appeared in issue #68.

www.scarymonstersmag.com