House of Dark Shadows (1970)

I admit I didn't grow up watching the series. I knew of the series from relatives that grew up watching it. True story but my Aunt Mary used to have nightmares about Quentin Collins. I'm not sure if it was ghost Quentin, werewolf Quentin or his sideburns that made her wake up screaming. But it was a series I knew about growing up.l

And now Syd and I are hopelessly hooking being up to I think DVD Collection Four. We're just about at the point where Dr. Julia Hoffman's experiments to cure Barnabas have gone horribly wrong causing him to look his true age of 200 or so years old.

I was thrilled to hear that they will be FINALLY releasing House of Dark Shadows on DVD along with the second film Night of Dark Shadows on October 30th. I'm kind of wondering if they are doing this because they're also releasing Tim Burton's adaptation of Dark Shadows around the same time.

House of  Dark Shadows was Dan Curtis's first attept at a big screen version of his television series. Originally he had thought about just cobbling together clips from the series to fit a feature-length movie but the idea was quickly abandoned. Instead he opted to do both a retelling and re-imagining of the first appearance of Barnabas Collins.

Although in this movie, Barnabas was more in the traditionally cruel vampire rather than the more heroic light that had been cast upon the character at that point of the television series.

Many of the actors from the series, including Jonathan Frid as Barnabas Collins, are present in the movie. Dan Curtis opted to use Kathryn Leigh Scott's character Maggie Evans in the place of Victoria Winters as the Governess. Which makes sense to me since Maggie Evan's character was originally who Barnbas Collins thought was the reincarnation of his long dead fiance Josette in the series.

There's also a change in the setting as well opting for Lyndhurst Mansion in Tarrytown New York over the Cary Mansion in Newport Rhode Island for Collinwood in that movie. I was kind of surprised with the choice since I thought Carey Mansion had the ideal look for the Collin family's house. But it might have just been one of those things where they just could not get permission to film on the grounds. But I'm not sure of that. But the Gothic Revival style of the house does seem to fit the equally gothic style of the movie.

From the clips I've gotten the chance to watch online, I get the feeling this is the way Dan Curtis would have wanted to the television show to be like. Many of the acting seems greatly improved over the series. But to be fair to the actors involved, the original series was produced at a lightning pace. With episodes being produced and then transmitted Monday through Friday there seemed to be very little time to learn lines or to edit. So it's not very surprising actors were constantly flubbing their lines.

Actually David Henesy who reprises his role as David Collins was the biggest surprise to me from the clips I watched. I don't want to be too cruel to him. I mean he was ten at the time he first took the role of David Collins so considering his age and the type of shooting schedule he had to endure, you're not going to get a Macbeth type of performance. However, he didn't look at the camera as much as the young actress who played Sarah Collins.

But he seems to get a chance to shine in this movie in the role. Especially the scene in which he confronts Caroline at the pool.

Despite the success of the movie and the popularity of the series, the series itself went off the air in 1971. However, there was a second Dark Shadows movie planned but Jonathan Frid chose not to reprise the role of Barnabas Collins wishing to move on to other roles. So, the team opted to go with Quentin Collins and Angelique instead.

I'm looking forward to getting my copy of House of Dark Shadows on DVD. It has a very Hammer Horror feel to it. Hammer must have taken a page out of House of Dark Shadows because a year or so later they would release the first of their modern Dracula films starring Christopher Lee.

But Syd and I are looking forward to getting our hands on the DVD copy and NOT having to spend the ridiculous prices some people are trying to charge for a VHS tape online.