6.4 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
A painter and his wife move into a home and find themselves plagued by ghosts and spirits of his ancestors that used to be witches.
Starring: David Selby, Grayson Hall, Kate Jackson, Lara Parker, John KarlenHorror | 100% |
Mystery | 27% |
Romance | 2% |
Thriller | 2% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono
German: Dolby Digital Mono
Italian: Dolby Digital Mono
Spanish: Dolby Digital Mono
English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Lots of us have odd little hobbies that probably few other understand but which make us happy for one reason or
another. (There’s a fantastic bit in an old Mary Tyler Moore episode where Mary is “distressing” or antiquing an
old chest of drawers by whacking it with a huge chain, and Rhoda’s mother tells her, “It’s nice that you have a hobby
that makes you happy.”) I have a certain fondness for old record album sets and have developed an irrational
obsession with old Reader’s Digest boxed collections which usually feature several records all anchored around a given
theme or idea. I may sound like a kindred spirit to Penny, the Keira Knightley character in Seeking a Friend for the End of
the World, but there’s just something special about good vinyl—and as funny as it may sound, the Reader’s
Digest deluxe sets were almost always on excellent vinyl—that can’t be matched by the pristine perfection of
digital reproduction (but don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those crazy anti-CD people). One of the Reader’s Digest
sets I got featured big “easy listening” hits of the sixties and seventies and as one of the albums played one day, I
instantly recognized a kind of treacly sweet melody with pretty simple harmonic changes, but I couldn’t put my finger on
where I had heard it. It turned out to be a rendition of “Quentin’s Theme”, an unlikely Top 20 hit in 1969 by the
wonderfully named Charles Randolph Grean Sounde. (Grean had been a copyist for a number of big bands in the forties
and had gone on to manage Eddy Arnold’s career at RCA). This was his only hit under his own name even though it
wasn’t composed by him, though ironically he did write several huge hits for popular singers in the fifties.)
“Quentin’s
Theme” was culled from the Dark Shadows television series and accompanied the appearance of David Selby as
Quentin, a decidedly
younger and hunkier male star than Jonthan Frid, who had become one of the more unusual sex symbols of that time
period playing vampire Barnabas Collins. Quentin, like Barnabas, was another doomed soul in the original television
series, only his torment was lycanthropy rather than vampirism. Night of Dark Shadows basically reinvents the
werewolf wheel, however, perhaps because the series had been canceled by the time the film was in production,
though it retains "Quentin's Theme" as a regular cue in the at times odd score by "Quentin"'s composer Robert Cobert.
There
are still tangentially related elements to the original series Quentin storyline, but this second feature film outing is much
less bound to the original series than was the first film in this short-lived franchise, House of Dark Shadows.
Night of Dark Shadows is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Warner Brothers with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This, much like House of Dark Shadows, looks perhaps surprisingly good, at least given its relatively small budget and the fact that it hasn't been a huge staple on home video since its theatrical exhibition. The biggest problem with this high definition presentation is a curious inconsistency in contrast. There are times that contrast is exceptional, with really nice gradations in the color scale and a wealth of shadow detail (a lot of this film is rather dimly lit). But then there are just odd moments, like a late in the film outdoor sequence featuring Quentin, where the image seems bathed in a milky blue sheen that robs the image of fine detail and clarity. Generally speaking, though, this is a nicely sharp looking transfer that retains a naturally filmic appearance and in its better moments boasts extremely good clarity and fine object detail.
Night of Dark Shadows' lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono mix may not be exceptionally deep or wide, but it's quite boisterous at times, with some suitably spooky sound effects and a good balance between dialogue and Cobert's weird music. Fidelity is fine, if obviously quite narrow, and the track has no egregious damage to report.
There was a fantastically funny old Peanuts cartoon where Snoopy was atop his dog house attempting to write the Great American Novel, starting with that infamously horriblye Bulwer-Lytton opening line, "It was a dark and stormy night." The ever critical Lucy came by, read the sentence, and launched into a withering diatribe informing Snoopy of how horrible the opening was and how readers needed to be instantly drawn into a story by meeting an unforgettable character. The next frame revealed Snoopy's brilliant editing choice: "He was a dark and stormy knight." Night of Dark Shadows actually has a fantastically interesting lead character in Quentin, even if this Quentin isn't exactly Dark Shadows' Quentin, but the film never adequately builds on the potential of that character. This would have been a much more effective film had it been told exclusively from Tracy's viewpoint, leaving the audience to wonder if Quentin were indeed possessed or simply losing his veritable marbles. As it stands, Night of Dark Shadows is occasionally quite moody, but it's far from a scare-a-thon. For those who like ambience more than horror and who can also live with a little illogic and outright silliness, Night of Dark Shadows comes Recommended.
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1963
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