La casa dei vampiri

In 1966, the soap opera Dark Shadows debuted with a most unusual villain and heartthrob - Jonathan Frid as Barnabus Collins the vampire, freed from his coffin prison of almost two hundred years by Willy Loomis, the Collins handyman in search of the fabled Collins jewels. This is also how he is introduced in the film.

I watched the television show in reruns when it appeared on afternoon TV in 1976. Frid is a most unconventionally attractive man, but he has class and style, and he is most magnetic. Frid introduces himself to the Collins clan as Barnabus, a distant cousin who has been living in England. He takes up residence in "the old house" - the Collins family home as it existed when Barnabus was "alive" - and fixes it up to restore it to its former glory. This allows Barnabus to have his vampire existence without prying eyes. Here as in the TV show, the main line of the plot is that Barnabus becomes attracted to Maggie, a servant to the Collins family, because she is a body double to Josette, the girl he was to have married until his vampire existence and Josette's death got in the way.

This is mainly going to be of interest to people who remember the TV show or who have spent time watching the TV show in the years since it went off the air, because it is there all of the character development is put in place. The original cast, though, does a terrific job of recreating the atmosphere and the magic in the short feature film time frame that they have. There are a couple of odd casting decisions though. Onr of those is Dennis Patrick playing the sheriff here. In the TV show the same actor played Jason McGuire, a shady character and a very hissable villain who blackmailed Elizabeth Collins.

Standouts are John Karlen as Willy Loomis - he is a great modern Renfield without the appetite for insects - and Thayer David as Professor Stokes. He really does remind me of classic Hollywood actor Sydney Greenstreet. Too bad he died so young. But of course, the centerpiece is Jonathan Frid as Barnabus. I believe him when he erupts into uncontrollable anger and violence and I believe him when he is a romantic, marveling at how beautiful the trees look glistening in the sunlight. How is a vampire able to be outside in the daytime? Watch and find out.

The film features a number of the series regulars repeating their original TV roles, and there are several recycled plot elements from the show that come in handy for the movie. But producer/director Dan Curtis(the creator of the original series), knows the drastic difference between a daytime TV soap opera and a feature film, and uses this knowledge to create a striking, entertaining picture. Unlike an episodic TV series, the film doesn't allow the suspense to lag at a snail's pace, but actually builds suspense from the opening scene and never lets up! The performances by the multi-talented cast are truly wonderful, though star Joan Bennett(one of my most favorite characters on the show), doesn't get as much screen time as I would have liked. This is probably due to the fact that the film was cut by some twenty minutes before being released. But even in its truncated form, HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS remains one of the greatest vampire/horror flicks of its time.

This is one of the best horror films of the '70's, and certainly the best vampire flick of that decade. Based on the highly successful supernatural soap opera DARK SHADOWS, this feature film version of the ever popular series recounts the resurrection of Barnabas Collins(Jonathan Frid), a 175-year-old vampire who passes himself off as a modern-day descendant of the Collins clan. While staying at the Gothic Collinwood estate, Barnabas becomes entranced by a beautiful governess(Kathryn Leigh Scott) who bears a striking resemblance to his long-lost love, Josette, and determines to make the young woman his new bride. Few films based on Tv shows work, but HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS is an exception to that rule and like the TV series on which it is based, HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS has developed into a cult classic over the years. Like its sequel, 1971's NIGHT OF DARK SHADOWS, the film is currently under restoration. There are several sequences from both films missing. Hopefully, the generally unfavorable opinion of NIGHT will change once all of the missing footage has been recovered, and the film will then rank right up there along with its predecessor like it should.

For anyone who enjoys Gothic melodramas, this one is for you. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, producer Dan Curtis was on a roll with his hit afternoon television series Dark Shadows. When the powers that be decided to make a feature film version, most of the original cast members of the daily soap opera were recruited to star in this production. It is worth noting that several of the performers were pulling double duty at the time, since the daily program was churning out new episodes while HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS was being filmed.

Of course, a feature film version is going to have a much larger budget than its TV counterpart. And it is also going to be made in color, not black and white. Curtis and his crew do a very effective job transferring the basic original ideas to the big screen. In fact, they do not miss a beat introducing vampire Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid) and the rest of the inhabitants of Collinwood to celluloid. From the first fade in, it's a bloody good show, and the entire affair is raised a notch or two by the presence of an old pro-- Joan Bennett, doing quite well as matriarch Elizabeth Stoddard Collins, fang you very much!

Intelligently done, but bloody and violent story based on the hit TV show Dark Shadows from the late 60s. The plot revolves around vampire Barnabas Collins, who finds a cure to become human again so he can wed a beautiful girl. Genuinely creepy atmosphere, beautifully filmed and surprisingly first-rate acting by cast.