Based on the 1966-71 daytime soap opera Dark Shadows, House of Dark Shadows is basically a retelling of the Barnabas Collins story, only closer in vein (yes, the pun was intended) to producer Dan Curtis' original conception of the character. Curtis' idea was that Barnabas would be a real monster, on the show for about six months and then staked to make way for a new supernatural threat once ratings had risen. What he did NOT expect was the phenomenal response the character would trigger from the audience, which forced the writers to come up with a way to make Barnabas a sympathetic (hence the first reluctant) vampire.
With no restrictions, however, Curtis directed House of Dark Shadows and Barnabas was indeed a monster, albeit one hidden from the rest of the Collins family but with a real blood-sucking agenda.
Says Wikipedia, "Dark Shadows producer Dan Curtis began pitching the idea of a film based on his gothic soap opera hit sometime in 1968. The project was finally given the greenlight at MGM by company president James Aubrey in 1970. Curtis decided to use the original Barnabas storyline as the basis for the film, but with a modified conclusion. The film was shot in six weeks for a budget of $750,000. Principal shooting took place at several historic locations, including the Lyndhurst Estate, where the production had to work around the scheduled public tours of the house. Unrestricted by TV's censors, the film is far more graphically violent than its television counterpart, with dripping vampire bites and bloody deaths. The film was released at the height of the TV show's popularity to great commercial success. The paperback novelization of the film by Marilyn Ross (who had written a series of novels based on the TV show) was published in October 1970. The novel is based on the original script, and contains some scenes which were either cut from the movie, or were never filmed."
Don't let the trailer below fool you: House of Dark Shadows is a highly effective vampire film, and the perfect teaser for Depp/Burton's take on Dark Shadows.
Catch House of Dark Shadows tonight at 10PM Eastern on TCM (Turner Classic Movies)