The original Dark Shadows movies get some high-def love

Night of Dark Shadows focuses on the Quentin Collins (David Selby) character introduced to the TV series in 1968, but the movie Quentin is a very different animal than the TV Quentin — literally, since the TV Quentin was a werewolf in the 1840s episodes! The movie Quentin is an artist who inherits Collinwood after the death of Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, and ends up being possessed by his ancestor Charles and tormented by the witch Angelique Collins (who was never of Collins blood on the TV show). Quentin’s wife Tracy is played by Kate Jackson, who played a different character on the show and gets an “introducing” credit on the film. Also appearing in the film are long-time series cast members Grayson Hall, John Karlen, Thayer David, and Nancy Barrett playing completely different characters (a sort of precursor to American Horror Story!) with Lara Parker returning as Angelique, or a variation of the character, and Jim Storm as the Willie Loomis-like stable boy Gerard Stiles.

While it takes a while to wrap your head around seeing these actors playing completely different characters, it doesn’t help that the film is a mess due to the studio’s heavy-handed editing. You can see very obvious edits — the (repetitive) music often stops abruptly — that render many scenes, particularly towards the end, incoherent. There’s never any real sense of what’s going on, and when you find out one of the characters is keeping the spirit of Angelique “alive,” you never really know how or why. I’ve tried to sit through this movie many times and have never made it all the way through without dozing off at some point, and even as happy as I was to have the Blu-ray, I still fell in and out of consciousness midway through (but I did make it to the baffling conclusion). It’s a shame that the film has not been able to be restored, but it’s questionable that anything would have really helped it. It’s missing all the elements of what made Dark Shadows so popular, namely Jonathan Frid, and it ends up being just a failed attempt at keeping the show’s name alive to continue the series past the show’s expiration date in 1971.

But despite the shortcomings of Night of Dark Shadows, I have to say the Blu-ray presentation of both movies is outstanding. The films look beautiful without a blemish in sight, presented in full 16×9, 1080p quality. The audio is crisp and clear as well. Unfortunately, the only bonus material on both disks are the film’s theatrical trailers, presented in 4×3 full frame format. Compare the image quality from the trailer to the film just to see what a great job they did on restoring the films for Blu-ray. I truly was shocked at how great both films looked. If you’re a true Dark Shadows fan, then you will definitely want to add these disks to your collection (the movies are also available on DVD).

Review is based on retail copies of the Blu-rays provided to CliqueClack by Warner Home Video.