A painter (David Selby) and his wife (Kate Jackson) move into a home and find themselves plagued by ghosts and spirits of his ancestors that used to be witches.As this was written, directed and produced by the legendary Dan Curtis, there is pretty much no way it could be bad. Perhaps fans of the series were a bit disappointed that it wandered off from the core storyline, but hey, this still has the same great atmosphere that Curtis has created in other films (notably "Burnt Offerings").Allegedly, MGM forced Curtis to cut over 35 minutes from his finished film, and gave him only 24 hours to do the job. So the film went from approximately 129 minutes to about 94 minutes, which, according to some, caused the film to lose its coherence. I can definitely see that, and as a Curtis fan, I do wish there was a way to get that extended version back. Who knows? If they did it with "Nightbreed", maybe they can do it here.

It's well known that Night Of Dark Shadows suffered extensively from pre-release cutting, and those cuts severely compromised the film. The storyline became confusing, and the editing looked choppy in places. However in spite of these drawbacks, this follow on from House Of Dark Shadows - it's not really a sequel in the conventional sense - remains worthwhile, both for fans of director Dan Curtis' original Dark Shadows TV series, and casual viewers.One obvious aspect that causes disappointment is the absence of Barnabas Collins. Actor Jonathan Frid had refused to play the vampire again through fears of typecasting, so Curtis was forced to take a different tack. Night focuses on Quentin Collins and his wife Tracy as they inherit the Collinwood estate. Slowly, the couple become aware of the malevolent spirit of Angelique, a witch hanged 200 years ago, and Quentin is possessed by the spirit of his own ancestor, Angelique's lover. The films lacks the blood and thunder of it's predecessor, opting instead for a slow, brooding build up of menace and a surprisingly dark tone of sexual violence in some scenes.Hopefully, one day the cut footage will be restored, but in the meantime the new Warner DVD of this flawed gem is more deserving of it's place on your shelf next to House Of Dark Shadows than Tim Burton's new movie.

Well, this was nowhere near as bad as the Leonard Maltin Film Guide claimed – where it's been unenviably slapped with a BOMB rating! Nonetheless, I was confused by the fact that, while the events once again take place in the Collinswood manor, there's no mention at all of vampirism – in fact, the 'villain' of the piece is a witch who, like Barnabas Collins from HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS (1970), is intent on kindling an unnatural romance with the lookalike descendant of her former lover (in this case, young painter David Selby). Even more baffling is the fact that several actors return from the first film but as totally different characters (for instance, Grayson Hall is now the enigmatic housekeeper devoted to her former mistress in the best Mrs. Danvers tradition, while Thayer David merely appears in a flashback as the witch's nemesis!) – still, we get here a similar unhinged acolyte played by a different actor who, however, serves no discernible function this time around! In any case, the hero arrives with a wife (future Charlie's Angel Kate Jackson) in tow – incidentally, his progenitor had also been married to another woman, and the witch was actually his own brother's spouse!; Selby, initially mystified by intermittent visions from the past, eventually falls under the witch's spell and retreats to the tower to paint – barring entry to his wife, whom he begins to neglect and mistreat (culminating in a murder attempt!). Though hardly original, the plot is more complex (and, in a way, intriguing) than that of the previous film – approximating, in fact, the classic Gothic/romantic melodrama in the tradition of "Jane Eyre" and, as already intimated earlier on, "Rebecca". The film, therefore, is much more of a mood-piece than its predecessor with the various nightmares, apparitions and other strange occurrences throughout giving the whole an agreeably uncanny, even surreal vibe; tying in with this, Robert Cobert's evocative score seems even better suited to the tone of this particular film than that of the more genre-specific HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS.That said, the end result (at least, judging by the 94-minute Theatrical Release Version under review – since the 'lost' Director's Cut was, reportedly, a hefty 129 minutes long!) emerges to be vaguely unsatisfactory (not helped by the less-than-stellar quality of the source, bearing fuzzy credits and a distracting echoey soundtrack): for one thing, the 'established' actors were generally better served by their roles in the first film – while the new recruits don't exactly set the screen on fire! The script does take care to provide one final twist leading to a downbeat 'curtain' (of the type we have relentlessly suffered from in recent years – note my comments to the recently-viewed HATCHET [2006])…though its coda of a newspaper report describing the mysterious road accident in which the central couple's married friends were killed (but which is then interrupted half-way through) proves a genuine "What The F***?!" moment. The film was immediately followed by two distinct theatrical trailers for it, as well as an alternate one for HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS than what was included on its own edition.

Follow up to "House of Dark Shadows" has potential, but comes off as low-budget horror trash, due to a rush `butchering' by MGM editing before the film's release. As its predecessor, the eerie ghost story is beautifully filmed (in Tarrytown, NY), but the plot revolving around newlyweds moving in the old family estate that is haunted is nothing new and makes no sense at times.