House of Dark Shadows (1970)

MOVIES!, 9 a.m.

Dan Curtis directed this 1970 horror film, the first of his two feature-length movies based on his famous 1966-71 gothic soap opera Dark Shadows, in which, freed from worries about having to appease TV censors, he was able to include more graphically violent scenes. Several cast members from the series reprise their roles here, notably Jonathan Frid as vampire Barnabas Collins, who is accidentally released from his centuries-long entombment at his family’s ancestral estate in Maine. As he targets his descendants who now live there, Collins also seeks a cure for his vampirism so that he can marry Maggie Evans (Kathryn Leigh Scott, reprising her series role), a woman who resembles his long-lost fiancee, Josette.

MGM