Alex da Silva Well, be careful of what you wish for Nancy Barrett (Carolyn). Jonathan Frid (Barnabas) is in town and he's got something on his mind. He's a lot older than you think and he wants to marry Kathryn Leigh Scott (Maggie) who reminds him of a former bride.This vampire story is actually alright in terms of vampire films. It just doesn't make sense and that ruins it for me. Sometimes, people are bitten and nothing happens, other times they become vampires. It's totally inconsistent and therefore totally dumb. What is going on? It's also pretty confusing at the beginning – who's who? It's not a bloodfest, which scores points for me, it does have its scary moments and it delivers an appropriate setting and atmosphere. I wanted to like it more, though.

Beginthebeguine I was very happy to see that, due to the latest Dark Shadows resurrection, that the Dan Curtis estate has finally released the DVD/BluRay House of Dark Shadows. Although the movie is basically a rehash of the Barnabus cycle of the Soap Opera from which it is born. It was great fun to watch this movie I had originally rushed to see in the cinema back when I was a child. As disappointing, in its silliness, as the Tim Burton/Johhny Depp current movie is; this film tries to take the story seriously which is what makes camp funny in the first place. This, like other Dan Curtis productions of the 1970s are not meant to be funny, but they are in an endearing way.We had just come out of the Hammer era of Vampire flicks and Christopher Lee had hung up his cape and we were left hanging with Robert Quarry as Count Yorga. Barnabus was a vampire that we knew and watched every day, turning it into a film, that anyone but the most die-hard fan would go to see was very chancy in a time when Western cinema was trying to appear more upscale. In other words Horror and Westerns were out and the Godfather and Serpico was in. Barnabus is the first of the vampires we actually knew and there is no doubt that Ann Rice took her first interest in "knowing" the vampire's personal story from this show and/or movie. I suppose in a way we can thank Dan Curtis for the current crop of nauseating vampire movies starting with the terrible Vampire Lestat and making its--hopefully--swan song with the Twilight franchise. Needless to say I was thrilled when the DVD was released if only to own a part of my past that was so significant back then and had an effect on my childhood imagination.Is it a good film ? Dan Curtis could care less about conditionality, script, camera position, editing form, focus, or even sober actors (check out Joan Bennett). What Curtis did was create character and story and let us fill in the gaps. Perhaps that is why Barnabus had such an effect on the imagination of people from my generation.For the new viewer, especially those interested in film, one of the things that Dan Curtis could do is "Gothic". Not many Americans can do Gothic. The Brits have it down, but with us it is very difficult. The atmosphere makes up for so much. Also it is really just an exploitation film, as all genre films were back then, so add it to your list and sit back an enjoy the camp and thrill of "seeing how Vampires do it" as the trailer says.

mike48128 David Collins (the young boy) and a lot of the original characters have almost nothing-to-do in the 1970 movie. Does David's tutor even have a role here? The story involves mainly two themes and is a clumsy reprise of the ABC series: Dr. Hoffman tries to "cure" Barnabas Collins, and Barnabas' reincarnated bride ("Angelique"). It moves too fast. It seems like the first part of the movie was "chopped-off" as it seems to open in the middle, not the beginning. Maybe MGM made director Dan Curtis shorten it, like they did with his sequel "Night of Dark Shadows." Willie Loomis, the demented houseboy,is played "smarter" than in the other versions. Everyone must be in a real fog not to see that Barnabas is the cause of the mysterious deaths. Plot twist: Silver bullets do not usually kill vampires, but they do in this re-telling. Barnabas was always a "reluctant" vampire, but not here. He is far meaner and he strangles as many people as he turns into vampires. This "change of personality" might have hastened the untimely demise of the afternoon series in 1971. Guest monsters like a werewolf or even Frankenstein (both were in the final season, weren't they?) would have helped. It is not "campy" enough. Far too serious in nature, and far more bloody than the series. At the finish, almost everyone is either dead or living-dead. (Did anyone see the fake-looking bat that flies away at the film's end?) However, it does have good production values: a real mansion and real woods instead of a cheap indoor set with outdoor filmed scenes. Look for Nancy Barrett, who becomes a gorgeous long-haired blond vampire. (She looks a lot like Majel Barrett from "Star Trek".) For die-hard fans only. Both House and Night of Dark Shadows are now on DVD. See my separate review of the 1991 revival series.

mukava991 "House of Dark Shadows" was made chiefly for fans of the popular daytime television series from which it was derived through the participation of the show's producer, composer, writers and several prominent cast members. For others this hodgepodge will seem choppy and even incoherent. The main difference between TV show and movie (besides the extreme compression of hundreds of hours of content into 100 minutes of action-packed but narratively absurd melodrama) is in the superior, atmospheric color photography and painstaking, often baroque, set design. In this movie an old stone crypt really looks and sounds like an old stone crypt, not plywood painted grey. Exteriors are really exteriors and not a few plastic trees sitting insecurely in piles of dirt on a soundstage. Freshly lit candles are not conveniently burning in sealed tombs. Bannisters do not wobble when touched by human hands; mike booms do not appear in shots; eyes do not dart toward teleprompters. And blood flows copiously from numerous neck bites and impalings, all to Robert Cobert's inspired musical underscoring. As for the actors, Jonathan Frid as the vampire loses none of his small screen potency in this adaptation. Nancy Barrett as the daughter of the Collins house gets to play demonic for much of her screen time and makes the most of the opportunity. Grayson Hall, as Dr. Hoffman, who falls in love with Barnabas while trying to cure his vampirism also survives the transfer intact, as does the superior character actor Thayer David as Professor Stokes. John Karlen as lowlife Willie Loomis, household helper and slave to Barnabas, manages to restrain his tendency toward extreme (but sometimes delightful) overacting. Louis Edmonds as the male head of the Collins household delivers the few lines given him with his matchlessly resonant voice, but Joan Bennett as his sister is largely decorative. David Henesy as his son is given very little dialogue at all.