I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

As Good As It Gets

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

I actually am one of the original ardent fans of the TV series in the 1960s, from the first day in 1966 on. It was forbidden fruit for some of us, who had parents who disapproved and would not let us watch, so we wanted to watch it even more! The series was great, but this film was so utterly wretched looking, with such cheap, lousy film techniques; just the look alone was an insult. I was searching just now for some stupid review that would actually praise its look, comparing it to a foreign film. Yes, it would compare to a foreign film from a country that was so starved of entertainment and resources that this would pass for great art. (sarcastic). Germany, after WWI, had an excuse for having low budget, and actually still managed to have an interesting look to their films. House of DS does not. The film is absent the value of the TV series; yet there are actually fans of the TV series who LIKE this mess.A film should have a decent cinematographer. How hard is that? But maybe there is no way this could have satisfied. A daytime TV series has time and space to fully engage and explore character motivations and plot. This one simply killed off almost all the characters and made Barnabus bloody and repulsive and disgusting. I do not know whom they were trying to target with this trash. The fans loved the romance of the show, and details. Who loved this? I did not love Barnabus --I never forgave him for how cruel he was too poor Maggie Evans, and didn't buy his "love" for Josette either. He was such a jerk control freak. I rooted for Angelique to get him in revenge. I have also gone to the Dark Shadows Festivals where fans praise this rotten film. I have sat next to fans who ask me if I like the film, and I can barely contain myself at how I despise it. Those of us who sit in on discussions of the film ask the makers/actors about it, and some of us ask about the storyline, which is more violent than the series, and nauseating and about the cheap production values. I cannot recall what the excuses are. I am not impressed. I didn't like Night of Dark Shadows, either, though its production values are better.Then again, there have been bad transfers of the film. I recall when this film was broadcast on CBS late movies and the video was horribly scratchy; I guess the TV execs did not care. It was so bad, it looked like it been run through someone's anus. Muddy, scratchy. I have seen it look better than that.But the script is still bad, and makes the characters look stupid. The soap opera itself rates an A, with a score of 10. This thing rates 10 below zero.

Vampire Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid) is released from his prison and searches for a cure to his affliction, so he can marry the incarnation of his lost love (Kathryn Leigh Scott).When you have something directed by Dan Curtis, you know it will be good. And then when you know the film is far more graphically violent than its television counterpart, with dripping vampire bites and bloody deaths... that is a guaranteed win.I am not overly familiar with the television show, but only because it has like 1000 episodes. I have been meaning to get to that. If it is anything like this film, though, it is well worth watching.

David Collins (the young boy) and a lot of the original characters have almost nothing-to-do in the 1970 movie. Does David's tutor even have a role here? The story involves mainly two themes and is a clumsy reprise of the ABC series: Dr. Hoffman tries to "cure" Barnabas Collins, and Barnabas' reincarnated bride ("Angelique"). It moves too fast. It seems like the first part of the movie was "chopped-off" as it seems to open in the middle, not the beginning. Maybe MGM made director Dan Curtis shorten it, like they did with his sequel "Night of Dark Shadows." Willie Loomis, the demented houseboy,is played "smarter" than in the other versions. Everyone must be in a real fog not to see that Barnabas is the cause of the mysterious deaths. Plot twist: Silver bullets do not usually kill vampires, but they do in this re-telling. Barnabas was always a "reluctant" vampire, but not here. He is far meaner and he strangles as many people as he turns into vampires. This "change of personality" might have hastened the untimely demise of the afternoon series in 1971. Guest monsters like a werewolf or even Frankenstein (both were in the final season, weren't they?) would have helped. It is not "campy" enough. Far too serious in nature, and far more bloody than the series. At the finish, almost everyone is either dead or living-dead. (Did anyone see the fake-looking bat that flies away at the film's end?) However, it does have good production values: a real mansion and real woods instead of a cheap indoor set with outdoor filmed scenes. Look for Nancy Barrett, who becomes a gorgeous long-haired blond vampire. (She looks a lot like Majel Barrett from "Star Trek".) For die-hard fans only. Both House and Night of Dark Shadows are now on DVD. See my separate review of the 1991 revival series.

"House of Dark Shadows" was made chiefly for fans of the popular daytime television series from which it was derived through the participation of the show's producer, composer, writers and several prominent cast members. For others this hodgepodge will seem choppy and even incoherent. The main difference between TV show and movie (besides the extreme compression of hundreds of hours of content into 100 minutes of action-packed but narratively absurd melodrama) is in the superior, atmospheric color photography and painstaking, often baroque, set design. In this movie an old stone crypt really looks and sounds like an old stone crypt, not plywood painted grey. Exteriors are really exteriors and not a few plastic trees sitting insecurely in piles of dirt on a soundstage. Freshly lit candles are not conveniently burning in sealed tombs. Bannisters do not wobble when touched by human hands; mike booms do not appear in shots; eyes do not dart toward teleprompters. And blood flows copiously from numerous neck bites and impalings, all to Robert Cobert's inspired musical underscoring. As for the actors, Jonathan Frid as the vampire loses none of his small screen potency in this adaptation. Nancy Barrett as the daughter of the Collins house gets to play demonic for much of her screen time and makes the most of the opportunity. Grayson Hall, as Dr. Hoffman, who falls in love with Barnabas while trying to cure his vampirism also survives the transfer intact, as does the superior character actor Thayer David as Professor Stokes. John Karlen as lowlife Willie Loomis, household helper and slave to Barnabas, manages to restrain his tendency toward extreme (but sometimes delightful) overacting. Louis Edmonds as the male head of the Collins household delivers the few lines given him with his matchlessly resonant voice, but Joan Bennett as his sister is largely decorative. David Henesy as his son is given very little dialogue at all.