House of Dark Shadows Blu-ray Review
Cheesy, yes, but also fun and even scary at times.
Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, October 27, 2012
One of my very earliest memories is of my maternal Grandmother coming out to spend several weeks with my family for
what must have been the Christmas holiday season. I don't think I was even old enough to be going full time to school
yet; I could conceivably have been in half day preschool or even kindergarten, but I clearly remember being home in the
afternoons and Grandma insisting that any and all activity cease so that she could watch her "stories", meaning the
plethora of daytime soap operas that used to fill the broadcast networks back in those days. One of those shows (I
want to say it was either
The Edge of Night or
The Secret Storm) had a storyline that dealt with a little
boy being kidnapped, something that I didn't take much heed of until a few days later when my Mother and one of my
sisters brought me along to go Christmas shopping at a Sears store where not so coincidentally my father was the
manager. My Mom and
sister had to go back for something and told me to wait near the front of the store by the cafeteria, and as I stood
there, I suddenly felt a woman behind me who began stroking my head and then said, "Oh, Paul, you're probably very
tired, aren't you? Don't worry, we're going home soon."
Suddenly the images of that soap opera were swimming before my four or five year old eyes and I was absolutely
convinced I was about to be kidnapped. I really didn't know how to react, but I knew I was in "my Dad's" store, that
most of the salespeople knew me by sight, and I could probably raise quite a ruckus if necessary. But on a very real
level, I was scared beyond belief and barely breathed, let alone moved. Just like that, the woman looked down and
said, "Oh! Good heavens, you're not Paul," as if I needed that tidbit of information, and then I heard her (I literally had
not moved an inch since the ordeal began, and wasn't about to at that point) talk to someone behind me, "Oh, that
poor little boy, I thought he was Paul, he's probably scared out of his mind."
You think? This little anecdote
from my long ago memory may seem like it's neither here nor there, but it at least points out the visceral impact seemingly
innocuous television story lines can have on kids. If a non-horror plot point like a kidnapping can create such an
imaginary scenario in a child's mind, what could an actual horror story line do, which brings up a salient question with
regard to
Dark
Shadows, the long running Gothic soap opera that ran for years on ABC in the late sixties and early seventies. This
was a show that had a devoted younger fan base, and one has to wonder exactly what it was that drew kids and
teens to this often frightening but frankly pretty campy (at least to modern day eyes) outing. Whatever the sociological and/or psychological
reasons were for this
phenomenon, they've obviously not changed much through the years, as the current obsession with the
Twilight franchise makes absolutely clear. There's just something about vampires, werewolves and other
boogie men (and women) that younger audiences find irresistible.
Dan Curtis had a long if not especially distinguished career as (mostly) a producer in television and feature films, and if he
occasionally attempted
to grab the brass ring of respectability with outings like
The Winds of War, he was for the most part known for
horror outings, and often fairly schlocky horror outings at that. But Curtis quite obviously had his finger to the pulse of
what the American public wanted, at least with regard to
Dark Shadows, still an iconic property to this day (as the
2012
remake so aptly proves).
The afternoon soap opera had become a major sensation once Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid) was introduced about a
year into the show's run, and Curtis obviously saw there were more profits to be had if he adapted the series into a
feature film enterprise.
House of Dark Shadows revisits one of the major storylines of the television series,
recasting a few events and opening things up in a relatively grander fashion than the television series was ever able to
(although even the film didn't exactly have a stellar budget).
House of Dark Shadows revisits the television series arc that introduced vampire Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid) to the world of
Collinsport.
Barnabas is unleashed from his mausoleum prison when half-witted Collins handyman Willie (John Karlen) opens Barnabas' coffin thinking
he'll uncover the long lost Collins family jewels. Barnabas not only makes Willie his slave, he soon ingratiates himself with the Collins clan,
which includes
grande dame Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Joan Bennett), Elizabeth's daughter Carolyn (Nancy Barrett) and Roger
Collins (Louis Edmonds). Barnabas soon develops eyes for Collins governess Maggie (Kathryn Leigh Scott), whom he believes to be the
reincarnation of his long lost (as in
really long lost—we're talking centuries here) love Josette. In the meantime nosey old Carolyn
has been turned into a vampire by Barnabas when she threatens to expose his secret to the Collins clan to keep him from pursuing Maggie.
A simultaneously running plot has family historian and doctor Julia Hoffman (Grayson Hall) also figuring out that Barnabas is a vampire, but
her medical curiosity outweighs her better judgment and she tells Barnabas she can actually cure his condition with regular injections. Part
of the running subtext throughout this enterprise (and indeed of the original
Dark Shadows series) is that Barnabas is somehow
irresistible to women. That turns out to be the case with Julia as well, and once Barnabas reveals his plans to wed Maggie, Julia turns on
him, forcing Barnabas to reveal his true (several hundred year old) self. The fact that Jonathan Frid became something of a sex symbol
during the broadcast of
Dark Shadows is a mystery perhaps no straight man can ever unravel. He seems to be one of the ugliest,
least obviously attractive men to ever anchor a television series, let alone a feature film, but girls at least
did swoon back in the day,
and the film, while unintentionally funny quite a bit of the time, does make it at least passingly credible that Barnabas holds a hypnotic sway
over virtually every female who gazes into his fetid eyes.
There are parts of
House of Dark Shadows that seem positively ripe for the
Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment, and it
must be admitted that as my wife and I watched the film we more than once descended into snarky commentary as various women did
stupid things that ended up costing them their blood supply. Watching stars like Joan Bennett and onetime Oscar nominee Grayson Hall
trotting their wares in lo-fi films like this can be a little depressing, but Bennett is consigned largely to a cameo role, especially after Elizabeth
becomes semi-catatonic as various people start dropping like flies around her. Hall on the other hand has to carry a lot of the dramatic
(such as it is) momentum of the film. If she's not quite up to the campy Grand Guignol ambience that Curtis obviously reveled in, she gives it
one hell of a shot and is always a lot of fun to watch.
House of Dark Shadows may in fact be most tempting to modern day audiences as a decided exercise in camp, but it does have
several spooky sequences that are properly dark and dank and help to develop the shrouded Collins storyline quite well. Curtis was both
ahead of his time and slightly behind the eight ball with regard to this film. The whole
Dark Shadows phenomenon obviously
presages all sorts of Gothic entertainments (like
Twilight) that would later become mass market phenomena, but by the time
House of Dark Shadows hit the big screen and was a rather surprising box office sensation, the television show was already
beginning to falter, and by the time the film's follow up
Night of Dark Shadows hit screens a year later, the television series had been
axed. Of course its legacy continued (and continues) to linger, as a few people like Johnny Depp and Tim Burton can attest.
