Premiere: Kyle Motsinger pays homage to ‘Dark Shadows’ in new video, starring Kathryn Leigh Scott

There is a certain allure and mystique found in American gothic storytelling that isn’t found in other art forms. A sub-genre of gothic fiction, it is very much indebted to the overarching threads of slavery, fear-mongering, ghoulish irrationality, eerie presences, monsters lurking under our beds and humanity’s unquenchable thirst for the unknown. Throughout popular culture, such themes have been explored in various styles and details, and one of the most effective examples is the popular ’60s soap opera, Dark Shadows, a grisly, grainy and gripping tale of ghosts, vampires and lust. The show ran for only five seasons, from 1966 to 1971, but has undeniably achieved cult-like status over the past few decades.

Drawing upon his own adoration for such deliciously grim stories, pop singer-songwriter Kyle Motsinger pays homage to the iconic show with his new single, aptly called “Dark Shadows.” It dances on the light, featuring a heavy, thick beat and a stunningly twisted melody, which curls around the ear lobes and worms its way into the brain stem. The accompanying visual, premiering today, is a masterfully-crafted piece of throwback cinema, opening up on a late-night rendezvous to a decrepit mausoleum. Motsinger, who plays the fair-skinned, long-haired protagonist, finds himself at the loving mercy of a vampire named Barnabas Collins, a direct reference to the show, Dark Shadows.

It’s a soapy and macabre epic, wielded shut with references to haunted gothic imagery. It also helps that through a striking luck of chance Motsinger enlists Dark Shadows star Kathryn Leigh Scott (who played Josette du Pres, among several other characters) to lend a certain heavy-weight magnetism to the visual. “When I was in high school the SyFy channel would show reruns of ‘Dark Shadows.’ I quickly became obsessed with its story of a wealthy family in Maine plagued with witches, ghosts, werewolves and the vampire, Barnabas,” Motsinger tells B-Sides & Badlands. “I watched every episode and got VHS copies of the two movies spawned from it and the 1991 revival series that ran for a short season. As years went by, I stayed a fan and have been wanting to write a song based on it.”

Motsinger’s own fascination with the show and its motifs informs his artistic choices and perceptive direction. With “Dark Shadows,” the New Yorker stages his own gruesome but spellbinding fantasy. “I found my way into the song by imagining myself falling in love with vampire Barnabas in that gothic house of Collinwood,” he says of the dark-club song, which he co-wrote with producer Lorant Duzgun. “It’s my first entirely electronic track, but I managed to make it as theatrical as my other songs.”

The day the song hit digital retailers (Oct. 1), Motsinger met Scott in what can best be described as “a moment of serendipity that I’ve never experienced before,” he says. “I sent her the song later and invited her to star in the music video as the character of Elizabeth, the family matriarch originally played by silver screen legend Joan Bennett.” Scott graciously accepted the invitation, and in the video, she dons a dazzling gown given to her by Bennett some years ago.

The video, directed by long-time collaborator Tyler William Milliron, also stars jazz singer and actor Jesse Luttrell as the dashing, fang-toothed Collins. The sweeping backdrop of the historic Players Club, founded by John Wilkes Booth’s brother Edwin Booth, proves to supply the storyline with the kind of bedeviling torment worthy for such a legendary tribute piece.

Watch below:

Follow Motsinger on his socials: Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Website