Vlad, This movie sounds very familar to me. Do you remember if Hope Lange starred in the movie? It sounds like something I saw awhile back.

Cassandra, I don't remember if Hope Lange was in the movie I remember or not.  I probably didn't know who she was at that time, so she might have been.  I looked her up in the imdb, and there is one movie from about the right time period (1970) that seems to fit the bill, but I can't be sure.

The made-for-TV movie with Hope Lange from 1970 is called "Crowhaven Farm," and if that isn't the one I'm remembering, this nevertheless sounds of great interest to DS viewers.  Typical viewer comments on the imdb site are "greatest witchcraft movie ever made," "I saw this when I was 10 years old, was scared to death and have never forgotten it,"  etc.  From what people write, this sounds like the basic story:  a young couple moves to a small farming community, and the wife (Lange) begins hearing crying sounds from the woods and has visions of people in clothing from the colonial era.  There is talk of a wedge being driven between the couple, as was the case in the movie I vaguely remember.  At the end of "Crowhaven Farm," Lange's character realizes that a cult of witches is still operating in the town after two centuries.  She realizes that she also lived in the Puritan era and had testified against the townspeople in a witch trial, and they are now seeking revenge.

Although a "twist" at the end is mentioned, no one in the imdb posts mentions if the townspeople are the original inhabitants of Salem.

As an aside, I have found lapses in the imdb listings in the past, especially with respect to actors' TV appearances, so Hope Lange could even have been in another TV movie with a supernatural theme during the same general time period (say, 1968 to 1972).

This was a movie called "Haunts of the Very Rich," from 1972, I believe. I remember it quite well, moreso than many other made-for-TV movies from the same period.

Well, that's one down!  Amazing ...  Thanks!  This certainly had a top-notch cast, so I wish there were a way of seeing it again.

I'd love to be able to watch it again to find out how it holds up against my memory.

The test of time - that's the clincher.  I would approach some of the movies I mentioned with trepidation if I could see them again today because I've matured a lot since I was 10. On the other hand, I've found my 10-year-old judgment to have been pretty reliable (maybe it hasn't appreciably changed  ) when I've been fortunate enough to view some of these movies more recently:  Rosemary's Baby (I don't think anyone doubts that one holds up), The Other, You'll Like My Mother...  (Not to mention such non-horror movies, like "Dead Ringer," which was every bit as good as I remembered it and now has a place in my personal Top 10 list, alongside "Rebecca" ...)

Interestingly, I like The Exorcist much better today than I did when it first came out. I find it much more frightening as an adult, though I still think the book was better.  I remember reading the book when I was home alone one night back in the early '70s.  I was engrossed in the book when I distinctly heard someone cough.  I kept reading, thinking it was my dad.  Then I remembered I was the only one in the house.  Guess that's what "good" horror will do for you.

I'm only getting a chance to read this thread now, and I won't try to formulate an eloquent essay since there are several here already.  I just have a couple of comments, and they're taken almost direct from my post in the Dan Curtis thread from a few days back.

I had a taste for the macabre from a very early age.  I remember my mother taking me to the public library when I was about seven and I told the librarian I wanted a "scary" book.  The book she gave me was "Where the Wild Things Are," which I found very disappointing.  I must have already been watching DS by this time.

Throughout the '70s one of the networks produced a "Movie of the Week" and they delivered a number of chillers.  I can only remember a few of them, but one that comes to mind (which I mentioned in yet another thread!) was "When Michael Calls," about terrifying phone calls a young couple receives from their dead son (as best I remember it).  Then there was the TV movie where a group of people had somehow been gathered in a remote location (possibly a lush island paradise, I'm not sure) and awful things happened as they struggled to remember/understand what they were doing there.  I'm sure these were not graphically horrible things like in today's movies, but I can still feel the sense of dread that built from these character's fears, and in the surprise ending it slowly dawned on them:  they were dead.  A plane crash here, a car accident there ... they began to remember.

Another made-for-TV movie was about a family who drove into a small New England town, Melas, where awful things happened.  I think there was a young blonde woman who was practicing witchcraft and working mischief and evil on the family, and driving a wedge between the husband and wife.  At the end, the family narrowly escaped from the town's wicked inhabitants.  In the rearview mirror of their car you could see the town's welcome sign as they drove off.  The lettering was reversed in the mirror to show the town's disguised name:
S - A - L - E - M.

Then there was a wonderfully disturbing remake of an old classic, "Death Takes a Holiday" with Melvyn Douglas and the alluring Yvette Mimieux.  The realization builds that an awful thing was happening -- no one was dying, anywhere.  Death had come to earth in the form of a man and fallen in love, taking a leave of absence from his duties ... Somehow this movie had a grandeur and dignity about it ...

There were many such movies, where the horror was conveyed not through special effects or buckets of blood, but through the writing and direction, and the sense of dread these produced.

I remember a number of suspense movies of this period, thrillers rather than horror, such as "You'll Like My Mother," which aired on TV (both this movie and "The Other" are erroneously referred to as having been made for TV by posters on the imdb; neither was made for TV), as well as a number of made-for-TV thrillers that starred such screen legends as Olivia DeHavilland and Shelley Winters.  I guess the time for those movies is long past.

I began reading Edgar Allen Poe's unsurpassed stories when I was still in grade school, and a few years later Frankenstein and Dracula.  Somewhere about this time the last good horror movies were produced (IMO) -  The Exorcist, Rosemary's Baby, The Other (from the Thomas Tryon novel, which I read before the movie was made).  The directors of these films were well respected, not the hacks that seem to direct so many of today's endless stream of gorefest flicks.  I had already read "The Exorcist" and frankly was disappointed in the movie, not to mention disappointment with the audience which tittered with laughter rather than fainting or throwing up as the newspaper stories were saying.

Far better, I thought, was Rosemary's Baby, which my family watched when it aired on TV, and viewing it again today I find its web of deceit and suspense unsurpassed.

Then "The Omen" came out, and while the subject matter appealed to me, I remember seeing too many gaps in the story and again being mildly disappointed.  All the kids were eager to see the head being lopped off by the sheet of glass, which I thought was a bit much.

I think it was shortly after this that "Carrie" came out.  I heard a lot about it from other kids, but the bucket of blood or whatever didn't appeal to me and I never saw it.  In fact, I never saw another horror movie after that.  Just hearing about them turned me off (and I was only a junior high kid) --  the blood and guts, the slashers.  I've seen parts of those movies on TV from time to time, and while they have jolts and some suspense, can you actually be interested in the characters the way you are with, say, Marion Crane in "Psycho"?

For me, the entire genre seemed to have changed and I never again had an interest in "horror."

It wasn't until I rediscovered DS again in the last few years that a spark of my previous interest has been rekindled, and I've learned about such movies as The Haunting, The Uninvited, The Innocents (thanks to posters on this board and the previous board!).  I was very interested in the Blair Witch Project, which sounded very promising, but somehow I never got to the theater.  And from what I hear, the recent "The Others" also may have some of the qualities that I used to like about horror (though I've heard it has a surprise ending that sounds very similar to one of those made-for-TV movies from the '70s that I mentioned above).

Well, I guess I went on a bit longer than I planned, caught up in reminiscing.

Note to Luciaphil and Raineypark:  When I was at my local B&N last week, I happened to remember the writer you had been talking about -  E. F.  Benson.  Low and behold, I discovered a copy of his Collected Ghost Stories, bought it, and am looking forward to reading some of them.  I also have the LeFanu stories, de la Mare, and several other classics still to read.

Oh, and I hope to read the three chapters from the unpublished DS novel next week once I've finished up another class ...  

-Vlad

Oh yeah, I despise the character of Adam. But, I in no way blame Rodan for that. I don't get this feeling with every part I dislike, but with Adam I think Rodan was playing him exactly as he was told to. Part of it is the lameness of taking such a familiar story, right down to the kindly blind man who befriends him.

I've always felt that Rodan got a bad rap.  I really "felt Adam's pain" when he leapt from Widow's Hill last week.  I'm not sure why I don't like the Adam storyline as a whole; maybe because it seems to go on and on.  Last time this storyline ran on SciFi, I commented that I thought it was one of the better interpretations of "Frankenstein" that I've seen.  I still think so, having seen the Karloff version, the Christopher Lee/Peter Cushing version, the Michael Sarrazin version, the Dan Curtis production, the Patrick Bergin/Randy Quaid version (which comes the closest in portraying the creature), and the truly awful Kenneth Branagh version (note:  I'm a great admirer of Kenneth Branagh except for this movie).

None of these movies deals with the major concerns of Mary Shelley's novel.

There is one Frankenstein film that does, however, which I only discovered by chance last year:  Calvin Floyd's "The Terror of Frankenstein,"  a.k.a. "Victor Frankenstein," a Swedish-Irish co-production.  Though low budget, it's the only Frankenstien movie, IMO,  to faithfully render the book, including the appearance of the creature as described in the novel (Quaid's is also an interesting interpretation--and better acted) and Shelley's themes (the limits of science, man as superman, etc.).  As an example of how much of the novel is at least touched on in this film, a very brief scene depicts Victor's and Henry Clerval's experimentation with necromancy.  The late Nicholas Clay (Lancelot in "Excalibur") gives one of the movie's better performances as Clerval.

There's an eclipse of the sun happening right now ...

Enjoyed the article.  The first couple of paragraphs quoting Mr. Curtis seem verbatim from other interviews, but I suppose Curtis could recite the spiel backwards by now.  He may take a swipe at Mr. Frid, but unfortunately the remark he says he made to Frid proved prophetic, more or less.  I know Mr. Frid has continued to work as an actor, but his subsequent work was relatively low profile.

It was interesting to read Curtis' take boiling down the theme of the entire series. Taking that theme of lost love and using it in a supernatural atmosphere could result in a very good film.  I would hope this might be done.  No horror movie or thriller has interested me since "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Other" -- maybe the Omen (I lost interest in the genre as a middle schooler when "Carrie" came out, unleashing a gorefest that shows no signs of abating twenty years later) -- though I hear that the recent "The Others" had much in keeping with some of the classics like "The Haunting" and "The Innocents."

My favorite storyline is 1840.  Included in that is the 1995 segment immediately followed by what I call the Summer of 1970.  These are a tightly woven unit dependant on each other.

Why is it my favorite?  Here's everything I can think of (if you really want to know  ):

• The historical time period appealed to me in the same way 1795 and 1897 did.  (Not surprisingly, I'm also a fan of "Masterpiece Theatre."   )
  
  
• 1795 is probably as close to a perfect gem as DS gets, but what I like even more about 1840 is that 1840 adds layer upon layer of additional intricacies and puzzles, making it DS's most complex storyline, IMO.  I found 1995 to be the most disturbing segment of the entire series (and I like "disturbing" in my drama ).  The Summer of 1970 adds suspense before we even get into 1940.  So, for me that adds up to:  intricate puzzles, disturbing and suspenseful occult drama.
  
  
• I like the ghost aspect with Daphne and Gerard.  I find ghosts the most believable and possible of all supernatural entities, so I don't have to suspend my disbelief as much as I have to with some of the other storylines.
  
  
• I liked the playroom (though I know others hated it), the parallel lives of Carrie/Hallie Stokes and Tad/David Collins.  Rose Cottage fascinated me, as did the branch of the family residing there.  I loved Joan Bennett's Flora and John Karlen's Desmond, and thought their interaction as mother and son was dramatically very good  .
  
  
• The Stairway Through Time really intrigued me, including Quentin Collins' theories about time and space.
  
  
• I liked the encounters between Barnabas, Julia, and the elderly Ben Stokes. The friendship between the two men was furthered in this new twist.  
  
  
• The entire storyline had a palpable sense of pure evil (similar to the early Barnabas and introduction of Quentin's ghost).
  
  
• I really liked the way Angelique's origins were explained, and I liked how the story brought a thematic completion to Barnabas and Angelique's relationship.
  
  
• I enjoyed B's and Julia's detective work (in contrast to Vicki's cluelessness in 1794), yet there was a terrible sense of fate that overrided their ingenuity.
  
  
• The head of Judah Zachary.  I never thought I'd like this aspect when I first heard about it from a friend.  It sounded cheesey, but it was handled very well and creepily.  I preferred it to the Hand of Count Petofi, which I couldn't take quite as seriously (maybe it was Magda making me laugh! ).
  
  
• Pirates were another element of the story, if I remember correctly (although I don't think there were pirates any more in the 19th century ...).  Anyway, another childhood holdover fascination - nostalgia.
  
  
• The time period is the same as early Dickens, my favorite author.  Though there weren't any "Dickensian" elements, as there were in 1897, the period holds this favorable association for me.
  

Yesterday's first episode where Carolyn tried to clobber Adam with a rock and ending with Adam pushing her so that she hit her head and was lying unconscious represents a significant milestone in my personal history with DS!

I may have been the only child to have been forbidden to watch DS because of violence -- and it was on the basis of that episode!

I never knew until a few years ago from online comments that there had been a movement by fundamentalists to ban DS because of its occult nature. (Fortunately, I wasn't raised in a fundamentalist home, for which I'm honestly grateful.)

It's also amazing that I remember this so clearly considering I was 7 years old at the time.  I think my sister and I were introduced to Dark Shadows by a babysitter (my mother didn't watch any daytime TV).  I'm sure the Adam episodes provided thrills to my young mind ... but this is the first episode I remember, and that's probably because of the consequences that resulted.  I remember excitedly telling my mother about that (violent) scene between Adam and Carolyn (I can still picture Carolyn's blonde hair), and she said that that wasn't a show for children and that I couldn't watch it any more.

I do think her judgment on the matter was unfair, seeing as she didn't know anything about the show, but I am also trying to see that parents sometimes have to make swift calls especially if it's something that they don't think is all that important (little did she know I would one day be attending DS festivals ... an act of rebellion?).  She must have felt that the show had an adult theme and wasn't suitable.

My question is, do any of you mothers out there with young children (it seems there are a lot of you!) have any reservations about your children viewing DS?

I'm still somewhat envious of friends whose mothers (and/or fathers) had no problem allowing them to watch the show.  There definitely were worse moments of violence to come on the show -- one that stands out in my mind from my last viewing is when Jenny goes after Quentin (I think) with a knife.  Even I might hesitate about allowing a young child view that ... but then I was a product of a sheltered environment and still do not entirely embrace the total openess with which many of today's parents tend to view TV.

P.S.  Of course, my sister and I managed to watch the show anyway, at our playmates' houses, etc.  A couple of years later my mother finally relented after I said that DS had been written up in our current issue of "The Weekly Reader," or whatever, but the series was nearing cancellation by that point.  Only five minutes remained of the show by the time I ran home from school, so it really was too late ...

I believe Midnite spoke about a similar curse (not exactly a dream curse, but one that carried from one person to another) in an old b/w movie -- l hope I have this right -- "Curse of the Demon."  I saw the movie for the first time on AMC not long ago -- was intrigued when I read a synopsis of it because of a personal interest in (Nordic) runes, which this curse made use of.  It was based on a story called "Casting the Runes," I think.  I didn't think of the DS dream curse when I was watching it, but there are similarities.