UGH! I always knew I didn't like him....grrrrrrrrrrr...
IMO, what makes HODS work is that Barnabas is completely (well, almost with the exception toward his beloved Josette) evil, none of this sympathy-garnering goopishness he evokes in the series. It's not that I'm against the goopishness in the series, just that I'm glad it was left out of the movie.
If it's true that D. Curtis only intended Barnabas to stick around a few weeks in the series, would his character have resorted to being a sympathetic one?