Reminiscences: How did YOU first see HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS?

[Darren Gross]

I'd love to hear the circumstances of how people first saw HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS when it was first released...
Did you have to sneak in because your parents wouldn't let you see it?  
Did you're mom drag you because THEY were interested and you weren't?
Did you cut school on opening day?
How did the audience of kids react during the picture?  
and
Were you anticipating the release at all? Was the radio besieged with promos; the TV with commercials; the movie theater with trailers?
Trying to get a feel for what it was like to be a DS fan during this exciting period...

[Birdie]

Darren,
            I know I have told this story before so please accept my apologies to those who have read it.  To be truthful I don't remember promo's for the movie.  My two best friends and I were big DS fans and would race home everyday to watch.  Somehow we knew about House of Dark Shadows the movie coming out.  Maybe in 16 magazine.  That was a must for us to buy.  Our parents were not upset in the least about our going.  I remember sitting in the theater and it being packed.  We never expected it to be a scary as it was.  In fact my clearest memory was my best friend getting so scaried she screamed and reach over and bit my hand.  We still laugh about this along with our many adventures we have shared through the years.  Being friends for over 35 years we have a ton.  We know things about each other that we would never tell our husbands.  Sorry I digress.  I think the version we saw had the David hanging scene, but to be truthful I am not sure, I might have just read it in the book that came out afterward.  

Tonight Butch Cassidy is on and I do remember getting grounded for going to see that alone at the movies one Sat. afternoon.  The punishment was no Dark Shadows fora week or more.

My parents were never phased by Dark Shadows.  They understood it was just a show and it would not influence me to turn to devil worship.  Actually, it was my mom who made those desisions.  She had and has a very level head.  She let us hold crazy seances at the dinning room table.  Most likely she was laughing her head off in the other room while she braided a rug.  


Sorry rambling.

Birdie

[Donna]

I remember seeing House of Dark Shadows but I don't think it was in the theater.  I slightly remember seeing it on TV or was it the theater.....could of been.  

I have it in my home collection now and have watched it with my 12 year old son.  I was about his same age when I was watching it.  He is just now getting into the TV series.  We watch it together in the morning just before he has to leave for school.

I watched DS during it's original run from 1966 thru 1971 then again in 1991.  

I had no problem with my mom not letting me watch DS or the two movies.  She too liked watching it.  I was one of those pre teens who just had to rush home from school so I wouldn't miss a minute of DS.

I had to of liked it because I put riding my horse 2nd to DS.  Now that had to be something because I put her first before anything usually.  

[Mark Rainey]

Darren -- I recall being at my grandparents' in Atlanta and seeing the original TV spot for HoDS during DS one afternoon; I got so excited by the prospect that I started running around the house and got soundly chastised for waking my grandmother from her nap.

I was supposed to go on a boy scout campout the weekend HoDS opened where I lived in Virginia. It was coming to the local drive-in, so I begged my folks to let me skip the camping trip and go see Barnabas. It took some doing, but they finally relented, and my mom drove my best friend and me to the drive-in -- after taking us to Hardee's, which in those days was a rare treat. (Now it's rare, but not quite the same treat.)

I don't think I'd ever been so excited to go to a movie since the double feature of WAR OF THE GARGANTUAS and MONSTER ZERO. After the movie, my friend came over and spent the night, and he couldn't go to sleep for being scared. So consequently, I was up most of the night with him.

HoDS came around again on a double-feature with MUNSTER GO HOME, also at a drive-in; this time my dad took me. The excitement had not waned. And it came again in '73 on a double-bill with NoDS at the local moviehouse. However, the matinee I went to was jam-packed with kids, and it was so noisy you couldn't hear a word of dialogue in either film. Finally, about halfway through NoDS, the theater manager put on a "warning" reel that some of you might have seen in those days:

A stern-looking gentleman in a suite and tie, sitting in a chair with his arms crossed, looks at you and says gravely, "What if your parents brought you to the theater and, instead of the great picture you came to see, you got this.... <Insert sounds of children screaming and hollering.> This is what you sound like. If you are caught being disruptive, the manager will expell you from the theater. Furthermore, those asked to leave today will be refused admission to this theater in the future."

And on that grave note, NoDS continued... as did the noise, unabated.

[shadow=blue,left,300]--Mark[/shadow]

[Cassandra]

I remember watching the show everyday after school with my three sisters. When the movie first came out, we were all so exited about it! The theater was right around the corner from where I lived, so my sisters, along with my cousin, who is also a fan, walked over to see the movie. It was a full house I remember! I remember it being much more scarier than the TV show was. I was only about 10 at the time, and I was saddened to see how evil Barnabas had become in the movie.  It definetely had it's share of gore & violence, but compared to today's shows, it doesn't look so bad now. I never had a problem with my parents letting us watch it. Now that they're both retired, they both watch it with me!  

[Nancy]

I'd love to hear the circumstances of how people first saw HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS when it was first released...
Did you have to sneak in because your parents wouldn't let you see it?  
Did you're mom drag you because THEY were interested and you weren't?
Did you cut school on opening day?
How did the audience of kids react during the picture?  
and
Were you anticipating the release at all? Was the radio besieged with promos; the TV with commercials; the movie theater with trailers?
Trying to get a feel for what it was like to be a DS fan during this exciting period...

I had just turned 13, and because of the PG rating I had to go with an adult, and so a cousin went with me.  I remember my father dropping us off, but I don't remember much about it other than my cousin seated next to me covering her eyes most of the time.  She was a scaredy-cat.  Neither one of my parents wanted to see the movie, so I had to wait for the first weekend in order to go.  It was a Saturday, and the theater was full.   At the time, I remember I was very excited that the series had been turned into a movie (a very important thing in my eyes).  

I remember being eager to see the movie, but I don't recall any ofl the publicity leading up to it.  I was flabbergasted that Barnabas was killed in the movie, and when my father picked us up - I remember saying to him, "They killed Barnabas.  I guess he isn't going to be on the show anymore" and my father's memorable reply - "Honey , they are making too much money off that guy to kill him off.  He'll probably be back even in another movie."

I only saw the movie once as even then I thought it wasn't done very well.   I was very disappointed with it on several levels, particularly in seeing so many of the Collins family killed in it.   I had liked Julia (the core of the show for me was Julia, Willie and Barnabas) so I wasn't happy about seeing her killed, even though I thought she had screwed over Barnabas deliberately in the movie.    In the series, I thought Julia made Barnabas age by mistake.   The movie was totally different in every way from the series that I had enjoyed so much.  In short the movie did not enhance my enjoyment of the whole DS experience at all.

Nancy  

[sheenasma]

I took a bus across the bridge with my best friend at the time, and we saw it at what was one of the two intown movie theaters then (down from about 6 when I was little).  The line was around the block.  Then that night we conned her older sister into taking us to the drive in to see it again.  We went back the next weekend.

I remember that the character changes didn't bother me nearly so much as the house not being the same.

Nancy

[CastleBee]

It seems odd now but looking back I don't even remember when I saw HODS for the first time.  It was either at a drive-in some time after the original release (say mid or late ¢â‚¬Ëœ70's) or on television.  About five years ago I got sick of depending on cable to run it so I purchased the tape and have re-watched it several times.

My mother was never into horror films herself but didn't have a problem letting my sister and I watch them.  Some of my favorite childhood movie going memories include Saturday afternoon trips to a very old theater in the small town where 3 of my cousins lived. Out of all the films we saw there (many of which I'm sure went on to MST3K fame ) my favorite by far were the old Hammer films which I feel may have led to my attraction to DS at about the same point in time. I also loved staying up late on Friday nights to watch a local show called "Nightmare Theater" which featured a great selection of cheesy horror films and was hosted by a guy who called himself Sammy Terry .  

[Raineypark]

Oh, Castlebee, wasn't Mystery Science Theatre just the best thing??!!  My daughter and I laughed ourselves silly every time we caught that on!

My favorite horror flicks are older than yours....I still love the original 1930's films like "Dracula", "The Mummy" "M" (Peter Lorrie as a child molester...) and especially "Dracula's Daughter" which completely amazed me because I was sure that the people who produced it had NO IDEA it was about a Lesbian Vampire!!  How naive could I be?!!  

I loved how atmospheric those films were....all mist and shadows and strange architecture.  I'm sure those films were the reason I was SO READY to fall in love with DS when it appeared.

Now everything is guts and gore and I haven't seen a "horror" movie produced in the last 15 years.

Raineypark....who just might have an "Oldies Horror Movie" marathon on the next really rainey day (NO pun intended!)  

[Gerard]

I saw it at the Capitol Theater in my hometown on that October weekend of 1970, for a Saturday matinee.  I got to the theater (one of those old, fancy, classic "movie houses", since restored but no longer a movie theater, now a performing arts center) two hours before the doors opened and already there was a line.  The show sold out, every seat taken, in the orchestra, the two balconies as well as the box seats along the sides.  It was a double-feature (remember those?), the first movie a western that no one was interested in.  Then came the intermission, along with previews, a cartoon, some documentary on alligators, and then....

The place, full to the brim with unruly kids, went silent as the screen flashed to life with the MGM lion, followed by the opening theme.  The crowd went wild hearing that music.  What was amazing was that everyone did sit quietly, rivetted to the screen, except when we got our first glimpse of the aged Barnabas.  The screams of terror almost took the roof off.

For weeks afterwards, it was all everyone in Washington Junior High could talk about.  It was almost like the Star Wars phenomenon.  In the summer 0f 1971, I got to see it again when it played as a double-feature with Night of Dark Shadows.

And, Mark, I absolutely LOVED "War of the Gargantuans" and "Monster Zero".  After Godzilla, Ghidrah has always been my favorite.  How many Saturdays did I and my friends also go to the theater to see "Godzilla vs. King Kong", and "Godzilla vs. Mothra" (called "Godzilla vs. the Thing" when it was initially released), and all the rest of the guy in the rubber suit stomping model Japanese cities.

Gerard

[Teresa]

I saw both DS movies at the drive in on the same night. My parents brought all four kids and we sat in the back of our station wagon hiding under the blankets.
I think my mom was surprised the movies were alittle more graphic than the series.
I really don't remember what I thought about the movie. My sister and I were excited about the playground at the drive in and I remember my dad had to take us to the snack stand during some of those "graphic" moments. I must have been about 10 or 11yrs at the time and it must have been my first PG movie. I was not allowed to see R movies until I was 18yrs. Boy things have changed, you see little ones at R movies now days.

[MikeS]

I anxiously awaited the release of HODS, although I can no longer recall where I saw any of the advance publicity for the film.  However, upon its release, I was devasted to discover that none of the theaters in or around the area were showing the film!  Several years later, it came to a near-by drive-in, and I finally got to see it. Although somewhat upset by the deaths of some of my favorite characters, and the more evil portrayal of Barnabas, in the end none of that mattered.  I was finally getting to see my favorite show on the big screen, and was ecstatic!

Years later, I was thrilled to be able to purchase both HODS and NODS on VHS.  Now if only they would be released on DVD!

[jennifer]

my parents weren't  freaked by the show and i went with my sister I missed Barnabas though!
I do remember going to see The Godfather in Montreal
with the travel club. They let anyone in and that freaked my mother out when I told her about it

jennifer