House of Dark Shadows

"Dark Shadows" was one-of-a-kind. It was an ABC Network soap opera that early on was done LIVE for television. It became more gothic and supernatural when they brought in Jonathan Frid to play "Barnabas Collins", a resurrected vampire. As the soap opera changed to living color, they also included werewolves, witches, possession, and more ghosts. They even tried "time travel" to tell the history of Collinwood. This film was actually made while Dark Shadows was still on television. This is a theatrical motion picture based on the Dark Shadow storyline. Most of the entire cast in this film also appeared in the original Dark Shadow tv serial (1966-1971). Jonathan Frid, Grayson Hall, Kathryn Leigh Scott, Roger Davis, Nancy Barrett, John Karlen, Thayer David, Louis Edmonds, Don Briscoe, Dennis Patrick, Lisa Blake Richards, Jerry Lacy, Paul Michael, Humbert Allen Astredo, Terrayne Crawford, Michael Stroka and Joan Bennett. George Di Cenzo has an uncredited role, whom you may remember from the 1976 tv-movie "Helter Skelter" or the ABC tv-series "Dynasty". The story of this film is super-fast storytelling that took years to tell on the ABC Network serial. This sticks with the gothic story without all that soap opera fluff. Willie has released Barnabas Collins from his stone coffin and thus is resurrected. The man has lived for 175 years. He must have blood from the victims he chooses to stay young. He gets re-aquainted with his immediate relatives, thinking he has just arrived in town. They do not know he is the killing vampire nor the original Barnabas Collins of family history. (That's why he knows the history so well)
Locations: The Collinwood set is actually The Lyndhurst Estate in Tarrytown, New York. The Collinsport Inn is actually The Three Bear's Inn in Westport, Connecticut. The abandoned Moastery set is actually the Lockwood-Mathews mansion in Norwalk, Connecticut. The old house set is actually the Schoales Estate (Beechwood) in Tarrytown, New York.
Followed by NIGHT OF DARK SHADOWS (1971).

My husband and I first saw this in a Vancouver theater in the early seventies. It was a free movie night, the theater was so packed and the movie was excellent then. very enjoyable.

After watching 'House of Dark Shadows' I realized that had I gone to see this movie at my local drive-in movie theatre in the early seventies when I was a teenager, I would have enjoyed it very much and would have been jumping at shadows. This is a vintage drive-in theatre movie. I gave it a 3 because I found it a bit dated but in its time it would have been a 5.