By Jonah Davies

Combining equal parts camp, sexiness and supernatural intrigue, the fiery-hot new gay soap Dante's Cove calls upon "that old black magic" to conjure up TV's newest guilty pleasure.

Director Sam Irvin just can't seem to escape the supernatural and the scary. As a kid, he was obsessed with the cult soap Dark Shadows, which introduced vampires and witches to not only bored housewives, but their kids and husbands as well. Later, like many gay men, he developed a fascination with Anne Rice's wildly homoerotic Vampire Chronicles. Add to that the fact that his first job in the entertainment industry was as an assistant to master of the macabre Brian de Palma on Dressed to Kill, and toss in other credits that include movies such as Gods and Monsters (as executive producer) and Elvira's Haunted Hills, and it seems likely that Irvin would end up orchestrating the fantastical elements of here!'s brand new supernatural-themed soap opera Dante's Cove.

Irvin himself says the job seems tailor-made for him. "When the opportunity came up to do Dante's Cove, I leaped and jumped, because of the combination of elements that I was really excited about," he says. Those elements include not only witchcraft, black magic, and ancient curses, but sand, a healthy dose of sex, and lots and lots of suds.

The show follows the exploits of a group of sexy 20-somethings who cohabitate in a historical beachfront property that-unbeknownst to them-comes with its own dark and sinister past, including an ancient witch's curse, a couple of murdered children and -- perhaps most interestingly of all -- repressed homosexuality. These, of course, were the titillating tidbits that sold Irvin on directing the show. "It was all the stuff that dated back to my childhood," he says. "It had fantasy and horror and suspense and sexiness and being gay and all of these things rolled into one." In other words, he says, "It was like the ideal project for me."

Irvin's not the only one who immediately responded to the supernatural theme of the material. Says actress Tracey Scoggins (best known for the short-lived '80s nighttime soap The Colbys), who portrays witchy woman-scorned Grace, "The supernatural element was definitely something that attracted me to the show. I've always had odd things happen in my life -- precognitions, feelings that came to pass, an ability at times to create my own destiny -- so I really do enjoy this role." Scoggins, too, comes from a pedigree of fantastically-themed shows, having portrayed immortal witch Cassandra on The Highlander and logged appearances in such high-minded horror fare as Demonic Toys as well as its sequel Dollman Vs. the Demonic Toys. "I've played a lot of these kinds of characters, so it's no accident that I keep getting these roles," says the beauty, who adds with a laugh: "I don't have the kind of face that's going to get cast as Mother Theresa."

The attractive cast also includes William Gregory Lee (himself a veteran of fantasy-driven shows such as Xena and Dark Angel) as Grace's former beloved and chief nemesis, Ambrosius; As the World Turns veteran Gregory Michael as just-out-of-the-closet Kevin; and openly gay hottie (and IN's cover model) Charlie David as gullible good guy Toby, the show's moral center. It was, in fact, the show's focus on a pansexual cast of characters that drew David to the material. "I think Dante's Cove is showing a new trend in gays and lesbians and straights breaking down the walls of the ghetto," he says. "In the show, we're all living in this hotel together and interacting, and I think that's a more accurate reflection of what my generation is experiencing."

David says that same multi-sexuality is represented in the cast of actors who portray the characters. "Everybody that signed on to do the show knew what we were getting into," he offers. "It's a cast of people who were very comfortable with themselves and with each other and very open-minded people. I was surprised when I got down to the island and I was really the only out gay person there. And so you have this cast of predominantly heterosexual people, but who are really open to the idea of acting out homosexual stories, and that's really cool. I think it's showing a general mind shift. It's like, 'We're telling different stories that are hopefully going to be interesting to a broader audience.' We're crossing boundaries."

Those boundaries include social ones, to be sure, but also sexual ones, David says. "I think Dante's Cove shows young people -- gay, straight, lesbian, bi -- having an interesting time in their lives, in their early 20s, when everybody is trying to figure out who they want to be and all that confusion and anxiety and hormonal craziness."

Hormonal craziness, indeed. The show has so far been described as a hyper-sexualized mix between Melrose Place and Dark Shadows (or The O.C. and Charmed, depending on your generation), but Irvin likes to conjure up two other fan favorites when he summarizes it. "I sort of think of it as Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Queer as Folk," he says. "I wanted it to be really sexy, and I really wanted to push the envelope. Shows like Queer as Folk have really pushed the bar really far out there as far as the amount of nudity and sex being presented on television. And I thought, 'We gotta at least start there and go even further if we can.'"

Mission accomplished. In fact, the show's first 15 minutes are so chock-full of heavy petting and nudity that one might think they'd stumbled across a late-night movie on Cinemax. Which, according to Irvin, was sort of the point: "With the show being presented on here!, I felt it had to be something that you can't just get on free TV," he offers. "But I also felt that many people in the gay community are starved for something that is really sexy now that Queer as Folk isn't around anymore. There are lots of gay characters around, but there certainly aren't gay characters in pretty intense sexual situations."

Lee, too, defends the show's emphasis on sex, maintaining that it is the show's central themes surrounding the occult and the supernatural that sustain it. "With this kind of show, I think the heavy petting is part of it, but there's not a lot of difference between the sex on this show and the sex on any other daytime or nighttime soap," he posits. "But you can take any kind of soapish show, and people respond to that. They want to see that. And if you throw in a decent plot that really moves the story along, you've got the best of both worlds. And I think the plot is strong enough."

Though Irvin is aware that Queer as Folk was often criticized for what was often considered to be a preoccupation with sex, he, too, is quick to place all the skin in context. "Every time I read those criticisms about Queer as Folk focusing too much on the sexuality of the characters, I had to laugh, because to me it was entertainment, and it's what kept me watching the show. I wasn't watching it because it was brilliant writing, and I wasn't watching it because it was anything other than a guilty pleasure." Which is exactly the way he describes Dante's Cove. "I hope it is a guilty pleasure for everyone," he proudly proclaims. "It was certainly made with that in mind. It's great popcorn TV, and we haven't seen this kind of genre presented on a television series before with gay characters.

"I look at it as pure entertainment," he continues. "We're not trying to make any kind of a political statement and we're not trying to be particularly politically correct in any way. We're just presenting beautiful people in interesting situations, with a little bit of mystery and suspense and horror. And I hope that we'll be judged on the basis of what we're trying to do instead of what other people would like us to do in some more serious fashion that really isn't what we're trying to do."

David says that he hopes the show becomes "a devilish dessert" that people call their friends about and say, "'Oh, my God! Have you seen Dante's Cove? I hope we gain a following. I hope people watch it and take it for what it is and get it and laugh." Adds Scoggins, "I think no show will one hundred percent represent any community. My father was a lawyer and a judge, and every time a legal show came on, he'd be screaming and saying, 'That's not accurate!' So you're never going to please everyone."

It remains to be seen how gay audiences react to Dante's Cove, but Scoggins, who recently attended a screening of the show's first three episodes (which are being presented as one 90-minute block at first, and will later be edited into half-hour installments) at the Fresno Gay Film Festival with Lee and a few other members of the cast, says that the response there was more than encouraging. "We had a very wide demographic there, and they all responded favorably!" Scoggins recalls. "They cheered at all the right places; they talked to the screen when they were angry or scared. It was just what you would hope for."

Dante's Cove premieres this month on here! tv, which is available in most major cities. Check with your local cable provider for details.