Night of Dark Shadows

Quentin Collins (David Selby) and his wife Tracy (Kate Jackson) take over the ancestral Collinwood Mansion in Collinsport, Maine. He starts being haunted by nightmares of the persecution of his ancestor Charles Collins with his mistress Angelique. Their friends Alex and Claire move into the guest cottage. Carlotta Drake is the brooding housekeeper.

I don't know much about the Dark Shadows series other than that it exists. This is a sequel to the movie based on the TV series. As such, I don't bring along any baggage but also I don't bring along any knowledge. As a stand alone movie, it suffers from too many dream sequences. They don't connect since I don't know who the old characters are. It's too slow and too static. Mostly, I'm intrigue about Kate Jackson who started her career on the TV show. I would have liked more danger and more tension for her. The obvious move is for Quentin to go insane and start hunting Tracy like The Shining. It goes there but it does it weakly. She should be alone against everyone and it should go all the way to the end. Alex and Claire diffuses the tension by helping Tracy. For some reason, there is a car chase in this and it's not shot terribly well. This is not a good horror.

Night of Dark Shadows was Dan Curtis' follow-up to the immensely popular movie from the hit soap opera Dark Shadows. This movie reinforces many known facts about sequels. Sequels always have much to overcome. They are invariably compared to the original. If the movie is a carbon copy of the first, it's criticized for being un-original. If it takes a different road, the public laments that it's not what they wanted. Dan Curtis deserves much never received praise for taking an entirely different road to Collinwood this time and risking the public's ire. At the time of it's release, Night of Dark Shadows received undeserved criticism for being slow and disjointed. The probable reason for this was that Dan Curtis was forced to edit Night down to a double-feature friendly running time, so much of it's plot and character explanations landed - guess where - on the cutting room floor. However, if one really watches this film closely, they will be richly rewarded with a delightfully moody and atmospheric haunted house/possession/witchcraft flick that will send chills where they should go during a horror flick. David Selby is stoic and forboding as Quentin and Charles Collins, and Kate Jackson is the embodiment of purity and goodness as Tracy. Grayson Hall plays Carlotta with sheer relish. She's the kind of housekeeper that motivates one to become a better housekeeper, so that we can one day fire her. Lara Parker will make you forget to inhale or exhale as Angelique. Her beauty is indescribable, as is her ability for evil. John Karlen returns as Quentin's best friend Alex, and Nancy Barrett is approachable yet truly seductive as Alex's wife Claire. They are simply a joy to watch together. Once again, the elegant Lyndhurst mansion is the perfect home for the Collins family, this time a haunted one. If you haven't seen Night of Dark Shadows yet, give it a try. If you have and weren't impressed the first time, give it another chance. It deserves that much - and you'll be glad you did.

Well, almost... David Selby plays Quentin Collins, a talented young artist who moves his wife and himself into the woodsy estate once owned by his ancestors, who were involved in witchcraft and may still be hanging around; Grayson Hall is the caretaker of the manor, who knows all its dark secrets (she tells the handyman, "Everything's different now!"). Dan Curtis' continuation of themes he began with the television serial "Dark Shadows" has its effective moments, despite MGM forcing cuts to shorten the original running-time (the film is a second-cousin to the TV show out of necessity, not by design, after Jonathan Frid refused to return as Barnabas Collins, forcing Curtis in a new direction). Robert Cobert contributes a spooky score, although there is so much one-finger tapping on a piano that one gets the feeling everyone is walking around with their own keyboard. Cinematographer Robert Shore does excellent work on a tight budget, and nobody stages a creepy nightmare like Curtis (this one has a shuddery funeral in the rain, capped with a lonesome church bell and a woman laughing hysterically). The reincarnation plot isn't much, and Selby is too colorless an actor to be much of presence (or a threat), but the dark, damp location--with spirits around every corner--provides the perfect place for things that go bump in the night. ** from ****

In 1975 I was a freelance writer in New York. During that year I was honored to interview stage and screen actress and one of the stars from Dark Shadows, Grayson Hall. It was during this interview that I learned why NIGHT OF DARK SHADOWS was such a bad film.

The late Ms. Hall related a story which told of how MGM called her husband, "Dark Shadows writer" Sam Hall and told him that he would have to fly out to California and edit out nearly 30 min. from his latest film. After his sad task was done he returned home and shortly thereafter the film was released. It was not up to the standards the the series nor MGM's hit from just the year before "House of Dark Shadows" had. The idea was excellent. Dialog well written, stylishly photographed and wonderful performances from the cast. The problem was the fact that the feature made little sense. It plotted along for 90 min's filled with questions and vagueness.

However, the good news is that most of the edited footage has been found and is now in the process of being re-edited. Night of Dark Shadows, through the popularity of the series, is in a sense going to be re-born. Sam Hall's work shall now be seen as it was created. Perhaps then we will be able to appreciate this classic haunted house story, the way it should be, without studio butchering.

For whatever reasons, perhaps largely due to reported editing room butchery, this film seems like a lump of scrapings from the bottom of the barrel of Dan Curtis's Gothic horror imagination. Several fine actors are wasted in a half-baked narrative about the efforts of young, handsome Quentin Collins (David Selby) to shake off the stubborn curse of his ancestors when he returns to the family estate in "Maine" (ha! you mean the Hudson Valley) with his fresh-faced new bride (Kate Jackson). Whereas "House of Dark Shadows" the year before incorporated plot strands from its parent TV series, this spin-off tries (and fails) to come up with a new story line involving ghosts from centuries past repeatedly taking control of Quentin's mind, making him act like one of his evil ancestors which results in spousal abuse. Nancy Barrett and John Karlen play a couple who live nearby and try to help Quentin sort things out; the lack of integration of their characters is among the most glaring signs of post-production tampering with content. Grayson Hall is the oddly fashionable and immaculate caretaker who is actually a reincarnation of a 19th century family member. Thayer David appears too briefly in a couple of hallucinatory flashbacks as a priest who supervises the hanging of the witch Lara Parker, another ghost of the past who also appears too briefly.

Much of Robert Cobert's music, particularly the underscoring in establishing shots, is annoyingly inappropriate. In the TV series his compositions enhanced virtually every scene and contributed much to the otherworldly mood. Not so much here.

Many outdoor scenes are shot in crude day-for-night fashion, sometimes under bright blue skies which cause actors' faces to disappear amid the glare. A maintenance worker in the house is cast with an actor who resembles Selby so closely that you keep mixing them up. Is this intentional? Again – editing room chicanery or dumb casting? Will we ever know? Director's cut, please.