Night of Dark Shadows (Dan Curtis, 1971)

 

Having already covered the first instalment of Dan Curtis' Dark Shadows cinematic universe (the DCDSCU?) - 1970's House of Dark Shadows - here, the series' second silver screen escapade came but a year later in 1971.  Filmed as the show was coming to its conclusion - and so unburdened by the first film's logistical juggling to free up actors from an ongoing televisual storyline - and initially titled Curse of Dark Shadows, Curtis' initial (and rather obvious) idea to do a direct follow-up with Frid returning as Barnabas was swiftly thrown out by the actor's refusal to reprise his role; for the final storyline of Dark Shadows' run Frid had only agreed to stay on as another character (the Heathcliff surrogate Bramwell Collins [a reference that any true Bronte-saurus should surely get] opposite Lara Parker's Catherine Harridge in an obviously Wuthering Heights-inspired saga) such was his boredom with Barnabas and legitimate fear of typecasting in the role.  Curtis instead turned to the show's second most popular character: Quentin Collins, as played by David Selby.

Now, Night of Dark Shadows was the first piece of the Shadowsverse I ever saw when it was shown on British TV late one night when I was young and I was rather excited.  I knew of the programme - as mentioned previously in my HoDS review - from the couple of novels that my grandmother inexplicably owned, and the the thing I knew about Quentin Collins was the fact that he was a werewolf.  Lycanthropes being my favourite movie monster I was as intensely excited as I was intrigued to finally see live action Dark Shadows.  Picture my confused li'l face, then, as I sat up late and watched this completely loup-garou free film transpire.

That's the fault of Li'l Glen and his assumptions, of course, and I did enjoy what transpired to be a very interesting horror movie - albeit not one free of bigger problems than my erroneous expectations of carnivorous lunar activities: the film's production was fraught with behind the scenes struggles, the biggest one being MGM's eleventh hour commandment that that Curtis cut the finished picture down from a runtime of 129 minutes to 95 minutes at only 24 hours' notice.  This of course led to an edit that could be charitably described as authentically oneiric, capturing the real feel of a nightmarish dreamscape of witchcraft and possession, but could also be pointed to as a last-minute hack job that has a lot less coherence than the original cut.  The good news is that the majority of the cut footage was rediscovered in the late 1990s; the bad news is that it was silent.  Dan Curtis never did get to assemble the director's cut during his own lifetime, and with many of the actors also having departed this mortal realm, the chance to re-record the lost dialogue has passed.  Unless they do it using soundalikes, of course, but the studio sadly doesn't seem motivated enough to actually embark on the endeavour.

The dream unfolds with the very much human aspiring artist Quentin Collins (Selby) and his wife Tracy (why, it's only Kate Jackson - soon to become one of Charlie's Angels - who had played Daphne Harridge in the Dark Shadows series; including the earlier part of the aforementioned Wuthering Heights storyline) arriving at Quentin's newly-inherited property of Collinwood, presumably as the last remaining Collins he has inherited the family manse after the mass deaths of the family members in House of Dark Shadows, though that of course presumes that both films occupy the same universe / dimension / time-band - though some of the casting may... uh... cast doubt upon any certainty of that. 

Greeted by the cold and decidedly Mrs Danvers-esque housekeeper - presumably Mrs Johnson's replacement, if we are going with the same time-band theory - Carlotta Drake (Grayson Hall), our cute new Collins couple begin to settle in to their swanky new digs only for Quentin to be plagued by strange dreams.  He is being visited by dreams of Angelique Collins (Lara Parker), an ancestor with whom he has a burgeoning obsession after becoming entranced with her portrait (like Josette's painting in the previous film an all-new prop rather than simply re-using one from the series, a worthwhile expense rather than cost-cutting from Curtis).  Carlotta continues to be very much the Mrs Danvers  to the late Angelique's Rebecca (a storyline that Hall and Parker had played out in the show's '1970 Parallel Time' sequence, when Kathryn Leigh Scott had essayed the role of the endangered heroine here being portrayed by Jackson), suggesting that Quentin set up his own easel in the house's Tower Room - once the boudoir used by the bewitching Angelique and Quentin's identical ancestor Charles Collins (a dual role for Selby) for their extra-marital trysts - increasing his fixation and recurring visions. 

Tracy tries in vain to get help from neighbouring husband and wife author team Alex and Claire Jennings (John Karlen and Nancy Barrett - either proof that this is in fact a different timestream, or Willie Loomis and Carolyn Stoddard has doppelgangers living just down the road) but Angelique's vengeance reaches out from beyond the grave to prevent the couple rendering aid.  When Quentin, coming ever more dangerously under the ghost-witch's domination, assaults his wife and almost drowns her in the estate's disused swimming pool he even begins taking on the physical traits of Charles (gaining a limp and a facial scar) as well as his personality.  Through dreams / flashbacks we are given the backstory that Angelique's wanton and free-spirited ways aroused the ire of her husband Gabriel Collins (Christopher Pennock, reprising here in 1810 his television character of 1840, who was the brother of  Selby's Quentin Collins the First: namesake ancestor of the better known immortal Victorian wolfman rendition of the character... I swear it makes sense if you have the time and dedication to watch over a thousand episodes) and sister-in-law Laura (Diana Millay) whose accusations of witchcraft and devil worship invoke the wrath of Matthew Hopkins wannabe Reverend Strack (Thayer David again); Angelique is hanged from the branch f the large tree outside the Tower Room before Quentin is inhumed alive with her in the family vault.  All of this is watched by young servant girl Sarah Castle (Monica Rich), an acolyte of Angelique's and of whom Carlotta Drake is the present day reincarnation ready to resurrect the woman with whom she was obsessed.

Accompanied once again by an evocative score by Robert Cobert, Night of Dark Shadows is if anything even more nihilistic than its predecessor (remembering that almost all the main cast, including the young boy, wound up dead in that one).  Its troubled post-production may not have been the product of a vengeful sorceress's curse, but it leaves us with a disjointed but dreamy reverie of a film as haunting as the terrifying but beautiful conjuress at it's dark core. 

And so there we leave the denizens of the cinematic Collinwood, left in a state of stasis never to return for a third instalment and the TV show existing only in the netherworld of reruns and nostalgia.  The spin-off novels would continue until the February of 1972 - and eventually be revived by Lara Parker herself some sixteen years later with her rather wonderful Angelique's Descent - while the Gold Key comic books would continue into February 1976.  But, of course, legends - just like vampires - are very hard to kill.