House of Dark Shadows (DVD)

I love Barnabus

I like this movie because it brings back many childhood memories. It probably isn;t the greatest movie in the world but to me it means a lot.

Watch until the ending credits complete and youll see Barnabas body fade away and a bat fly away. Apparetnly Barnabas survived impalement and drowning in a mouthful of fake blood. Note to self: only way to properly dispose of vampire is: 1. Decapitation, 2. Burn head and body seperately, 3. dump into holy water font at local Catholic church. 4. Rinse/Repeat As a vampire movie, HDS was acceptable; except for the occasional lapses such Roger-as-vampire mirror reflection, and the fact that the cross on the headboard of the recovering Maggies bed seemed ineffective against the aged Barnabas. But as a Dark Shadows fan when I first saw this movie, I left feeling more depressed than when I went in. Yikes!! Dead OR alive Barnabas is truly a monster in this setting. Viewing the DS re-runs on Sci-Fi Channel reinforce the view that yes, despite the so-called sympathetic edge to Barnabas, he certainly deserved a real painful stake through the heart! And thats before he single-handedly murdered almost the entire cast. Meanwhile, poor Willy Loomis got batted around by everybody! Good thing John Karlen is such an excellent actor cause he really took a lot of abuse on DS and in HDS. Forget this mashup and get Dan Caurtis real vampire masterpiece: The Night Stalker! The first and best of the modern vampire movies that forgoes the obvious questions when dealing with a caped creature that hasnt seen the world since the 1790s such as: 1. How did Barnabas know what a doorbell was? 2. How, straight out of his coffin, did he know how to open a car door? 3. Did he pick up the check when he dined with Willie at the Blue Whale?

classic chills.

love it

I gave this as a gift to an older person who watched this series on TV when it originally aired. This was a condensing of the entire series into a single movie. It is a cult classic.

I love this movie! Fast shipping!

Following the renewed interest of the 1960s daytime soap opera on DVD this past year (a beautiful box set of the entire serial was released in April and quickly sold-out) as well as the successful Johnny Depp remake, MGM has rushed in releasing the two films from the early 1970s that were based on the series. On October 30th both House of Dark Shadows and Night of Dark Shadows will be released individually on DVD and Blu-Ray formats. Dark Shadows holds the amazing distinction as being the only network daytime soap opera to ever have a big-screen release, not once, but three times. In 1968 at the heighth of Dark Shadows success (the soap was the #1 rated daytime show among the 18-35 age demographic and usually was near the top of ABCs daytime lineup ratings. Dan Curtis (the creator) decided to make a big-screen adaption. He wanted people who had never seen the early episodes of Dark Shadows to understand the storylines and how such an original character of Barnabas came to be. Writers from the serial (Gordon Russell and Sam Hall) wrote a wonderful script that was based on the shows early stories such as how Barnabas emerged from his coffin, his desire to become human, his search for the perfect woman to be his Josette, the arrival of Dr. Julia Hoffman and her attempts at curing his vampirism and much more. For many weeks in early 1970 while Dark Shadows continued to be a Nielsen hit much of the main cast reprised their roles for the theatre version. The movie became a massive hit and led to a sequel Night of Dark Shadows. However, with much of the cast and crew working solely on the movie ratings dropped to all-time lows on the daytime serial and many believe that is why the show was ultimately cancelled by ABC in April, 1971. The film will come in beautiful widescreen format and the original theatrical trailer will be included.

Nice B movie horror flick. Neat to see if you have seen the recent movie with Johnny Depp. Has the same characters in slightly different roles.

Beautifully restored color.