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House of Dark Shadows
USA 1970
produced by Dan Curtis for MGM
directed by Dan Curtis
starring Jonathan Frid, Grayson Hall, Kathryn Leigh Scott, Roger Davis, Nancy Barrett, John Karlen, Thayer David, Joan Bennett, Louis Edmonds, Don Briscoe, David Henesy, Dennis Patrick, Lisa Blake Richards, Jerry Lacy, Barbara Cason, Paul Michael, Humbert Allen Astred, Terrayne Crawford, Michael Stroka
screenplay by Sam Hall, Gordon Russell, based on the TV series Dark Shadows created by Dan Curtis, music by Bob Cobert
Dark Shadows, Dark Shadows (Jonathan Frid)
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Looking for the "lost" diamonds of the Collins, the family's
former caretaker Willie (John Karlen) accidently stumbles upon a hidden
crypt, opens the chained shut coffin it contains, and frees vampire
Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid), who promptly makes him his slave. After
killing a few neighbourhood girls for their blood, Barnabas introduces
himself into the family headed by matriarch Elizabeth (Joan Bennett), who
are quick to accept him as their British cousin and let him take
possession of a run-down house that has belonged to the family for
centuries. One of Elizabeth's daughters, Carolyn (Nancy Barrett) takes an
immediate liking in him, so much so that when she learns he's in love with
the family gouverness Maggie (Kathryn Leigh Scott), she threatens to
reveal his secret - upon which he kills her. But she returns as a vampire
and soon enough attacks her boyfriend Todd (Don Briscoe). Fortunately
there are two scientists in the Collins household, virologist Julia
(Grayson Hall) and vampirologist Professor Stokes (Thayer David), and they
soon devise a plan how to capture Carolyn and kill her for good that
involves Todd adding as bait. Julia finds out that Barnabas is a
vampire, but instead of telling on him, she offers to cure him - and it
seems successfully, too, as he loses his appetite for blood, can come out
in the daylight, becomes more and more human. So much so that he plans to
propose to Maggie - but when Julia hears that, she, having long fallen in
love with him, sabotages his cure and turns him into a vampire more raging
than ever. He quickly kills Julia, then even attacks Maggie in the need
for blood, before making a retreat. Again, a plan is devised to capture
the vampire, and again it involves using someone (Maggie) as bait. But as
well guarded as she might be, Barnabas has no problems getting her out of
the Collins home and into his house. And now it's up to Maggie's boyfriend
Jeff (Roger Davis), who has hardly figured in the story before, to save
her ... On the plus side, this is a well-made old-fashioned
vampire movie that really ticks all the boxes when it comes to what to
expect from a movie of its ilk, and it's atmospheric and spooky in all the
right places to at least entertain fans of the genre. On the downside
though, the film, a condensation of hundreds of episodes of the daily
horror soap Dark Shadows, feels horribly rushed and
convoluted, so much so that one doesn't get to know the main characters at
all, much less their relations to one another, while key plot points are
not properly worked into the plot but awkwardly placed, and the whole
thing even seems repetitive at times. It's still an ok watch though, but
it could have profited from a more stringent script.
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