mukava991 For whatever reasons, perhaps largely due to reported editing room butchery, this film seems like a lump of scrapings from the bottom of the barrel of Dan Curtis's Gothic horror imagination. Several fine actors are wasted in a half-baked narrative about the efforts of young, handsome Quentin Collins (David Selby) to shake off the stubborn curse of his ancestors when he returns to the family estate in "Maine" (ha! you mean the Hudson Valley) with his fresh-faced new bride (Kate Jackson). Whereas "House of Dark Shadows" the year before incorporated plot strands from its parent TV series, this spin-off tries (and fails) to come up with a new story line involving ghosts from centuries past repeatedly taking control of Quentin's mind, making him act like one of his evil ancestors which results in spousal abuse. Nancy Barrett and John Karlen play a couple who live nearby and try to help Quentin sort things out; the lack of integration of their characters is among the most glaring signs of post-production tampering with content. Grayson Hall is the oddly fashionable and immaculate caretaker who is actually a reincarnation of a 19th century family member. Thayer David appears too briefly in a couple of hallucinatory flashbacks as a priest who supervises the hanging of the witch Lara Parker, another ghost of the past who also appears too briefly.Much of Robert Cobert's music, particularly the underscoring in establishing shots, is annoyingly inappropriate. In the TV series his compositions enhanced virtually every scene and contributed much to the otherworldly mood. Not so much here.Many outdoor scenes are shot in crude day-for-night fashion, sometimes under bright blue skies which cause actors' faces to disappear amid the glare. A maintenance worker in the house is cast with an actor who resembles Selby so closely that you keep mixing them up. Is this intentional? Again – editing room chicanery or dumb casting? Will we ever know? Director's cut, please.

Christopher Nash It's well known that Night Of Dark Shadows suffered extensively from pre-release cutting, and those cuts severely compromised the film. The storyline became confusing, and the editing looked choppy in places. However in spite of these drawbacks, this follow on from House Of Dark Shadows - it's not really a sequel in the conventional sense - remains worthwhile, both for fans of director Dan Curtis' original Dark Shadows TV series, and casual viewers.One obvious aspect that causes disappointment is the absence of Barnabas Collins. Actor Jonathan Frid had refused to play the vampire again through fears of typecasting, so Curtis was forced to take a different tack. Night focuses on Quentin Collins and his wife Tracy as they inherit the Collinwood estate. Slowly, the couple become aware of the malevolent spirit of Angelique, a witch hanged 200 years ago, and Quentin is possessed by the spirit of his own ancestor, Angelique's lover. The films lacks the blood and thunder of it's predecessor, opting instead for a slow, brooding build up of menace and a surprisingly dark tone of sexual violence in some scenes.Hopefully, one day the cut footage will be restored, but in the meantime the new Warner DVD of this flawed gem is more deserving of it's place on your shelf next to House Of Dark Shadows than Tim Burton's new movie.

ersinkdotcom "House of Dark Shadows" is an abridged version of the Barnabas Collins storyline of the popular television show. However, creator / director Dan Curtis was forced to explore different plot avenues with "Night of Dark Shadows.""Night of Dark Shadows" focuses on the arrival of artist Quentin Collins (David Selby) and his wife, Tracy (Kate Jackson), to his newly inherited home, Collinwood. He's greeted by the mysterious housekeeper, Carlotta Drake (Grayson Hall), and the caretaker, Gerard Stiles (Jim Storm). Quentin begins having visions of a past existence in which he's having an affair with his brother's wife, Angelique (Lara Parker).As he digs deeper into the family history, he discovers Angelique was hung on the property for accusations of being a witch. Are his trances truly memories of a former life? Can he keep the evil spirit of Angelique from destroying his family and friends and driving him insane?Where "House of Dark Shadows" is quickly paced, this indirect sequel plods along nicely and establishes a storyline and a sense of fear and creepiness. The problem is what it builds up to. The conclusion of the film is rather abrupt and unsatisfying. There's also a similarity to director Curtis's ending of his 1976 film "Burnt Offerings," which I find interesting in hindsight.It's obvious when viewing the movie that it suffered some final cuts in the editing room. Long-time enthusiasts of the show know the history behind the making of the film and the existence of lost footage. Director Curtis was given 24 hours to re-cut the movie from 129 minutes to 94 minutes by MGM.Fans of the film petitioned to have the chopped sequences restored and a director's cut released. The footage was found in 1999, but it was without sound. The scenes are said to give "Night of Dark Shadows" a darker mood and reinstate the original cohesion and framework of the film. It's unfortunate that what we get here is still the 94-minute version released by the studio in 1971. However, beggars can't be choosers. The movie might have some problems, but it's still an entertaining watch.

MARIO GAUCI Well, this was nowhere near as bad as the Leonard Maltin Film Guide claimed – where it's been unenviably slapped with a BOMB rating! Nonetheless, I was confused by the fact that, while the events once again take place in the Collinswood manor, there's no mention at all of vampirism – in fact, the 'villain' of the piece is a witch who, like Barnabas Collins from HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS (1970), is intent on kindling an unnatural romance with the lookalike descendant of her former lover (in this case, young painter David Selby). Even more baffling is the fact that several actors return from the first film but as totally different characters (for instance, Grayson Hall is now the enigmatic housekeeper devoted to her former mistress in the best Mrs. Danvers tradition, while Thayer David merely appears in a flashback as the witch's nemesis!) – still, we get here a similar unhinged acolyte played by a different actor who, however, serves no discernible function this time around! In any case, the hero arrives with a wife (future Charlie's Angel Kate Jackson) in tow – incidentally, his progenitor had also been married to another woman, and the witch was actually his own brother's spouse!; Selby, initially mystified by intermittent visions from the past, eventually falls under the witch's spell and retreats to the tower to paint – barring entry to his wife, whom he begins to neglect and mistreat (culminating in a murder attempt!). Though hardly original, the plot is more complex (and, in a way, intriguing) than that of the previous film – approximating, in fact, the classic Gothic/romantic melodrama in the tradition of "Jane Eyre" and, as already intimated earlier on, "Rebecca". The film, therefore, is much more of a mood-piece than its predecessor with the various nightmares, apparitions and other strange occurrences throughout giving the whole an agreeably uncanny, even surreal vibe; tying in with this, Robert Cobert's evocative score seems even better suited to the tone of this particular film than that of the more genre-specific HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS.That said, the end result (at least, judging by the 94-minute Theatrical Release Version under review – since the 'lost' Director's Cut was, reportedly, a hefty 129 minutes long!) emerges to be vaguely unsatisfactory (not helped by the less-than-stellar quality of the source, bearing fuzzy credits and a distracting echoey soundtrack): for one thing, the 'established' actors were generally better served by their roles in the first film – while the new recruits don't exactly set the screen on fire! The script does take care to provide one final twist leading to a downbeat 'curtain' (of the type we have relentlessly suffered from in recent years – note my comments to the recently-viewed HATCHET [2006])…though its coda of a newspaper report describing the mysterious road accident in which the central couple's married friends were killed (but which is then interrupted half-way through) proves a genuine "What The F***?!" moment. The film was immediately followed by two distinct theatrical trailers for it, as well as an alternate one for HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS than what was included on its own edition.