“Some producers don’t care about the story. It’s just an excuse to get a couple of quarts of blood on the screen. That’s not what scares. It’s a mood, a feeling, a whole ambiance.”
For many horror fans, the name Dan Curtis conjures up nothing but good horror-filled times. The iconic director/producer was responsible for a range of horror/suspense projects during the 1960s and 1970s, many of which thrilled audiences and influenced numerous aspiring filmmakers. The biggest star on Curtis’ resume remains the game-changing soap opera Dark Shadows, which introduced a supernatural edge to daytime TV. It was the perfect launch pad for many of the creator’s future classics, including The Night Stalker, The Night Strangler (which introduced the world to everyone’s favorite TV antihero Kolchak), Burnt Offerings, Trilogy of Terror(another gamechanger in the blending of horror and TV), and BOTH House of Dark Shadows and Night of Dark Shadows, the feature film versions of his popular soap in which Curtis, filled with the freedom the big screen, went all out with wonderfully horrific results.
This Halloween, Kino Lorber has released two of Curtis’ most beloved TV movie creations onto Blu-ray with decked-out editions of the 1977 anthology film Dead of Night and his 1973 adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula as part of Dan Curtis’ Monsters.
Dead of Night
A trio of otherworldly tales of make up the anthology film Dead of Night, including a young man (Ed Begley Jr.) who restores a vintage car that transports him to the past, a woman (Anjanette Comer) who is convinced she’s being stalked by a vampire, and a mother (Joan Hackett) whose dead son (Lee H. Montgomery) has come back from the grave.
As if Curtis wasn’t already successful in giving lovers of the TV anthology horror film one of the genre’s best examples with Trilogy of Terror, he managed to do it again two years later with this equally (and in some ways far more) terrifying and suspenseful follow-up. In Dead of Night, Curtis continues with some of the themes and the strengths of what made that first film such an instant classic and takes them to higher levels. Begley gives one of his best performances in “Second Chance,” which shows not only a softer side of the actor, but of Curtis as well, in a story that brims with magical realism and genuine emotion. Meanwhile, “No Such Thing As a Vampire” sees Curtis back in full-on Dark Shadows mode to the delight of fans. Featuring great camera work, a game Patrick Macnee, and several clever twists, this is Curtis in his absolute purest form. However, it’s Bobby, the movie’s final tale, that packs the biggest punch. Hackett gives a (naturally) credible turn as a woman dealing with grief in this “Monkey’s Paw” type of tale, which provides shock after shock in a segment that saw Curtis push everything to the limit, even by his seemingly limitless standards.
Dan Curtis’ Dracula
In this retelling of Dracula, Curtis directs this unique adaptation of one of the most famous figures in all of literature. The director uses his unique touch to follow the titular Count (Jack Palance) as he terrorizes Victorian England, looking for the reincarnation of his dead wife, collecting a variety of victims along the way.
Although the story of Dracula has been told many times, Curtis is the only one who could make the classic tale come to life in a way that both spoke to the original text and fit in perfectly with the TV movie horror sensibilities of the 1970s. There are plenty of reasons for Curtis’ version of Dracula working as well as it does, not least of all Palance, who is so convincing in the role that it’s no wonder that he was asked to play the character again on more than one occasion following this production. Curtis’ decision to film in European settings helps a lot, as does his decision to include the element of Vlad the Impaler as part of the story. The changes Curtis elected to make to the story can seem glaring, yet totally work for the more tortured incarnation of the character the film is presenting. The technical elements are above par for a TV production and are yet another example of how Curtis was able to go beyond the boundaries of the medium. This is especially true in Dracula’s death, which reads as simple on paper, but is incredibly brutal to watch on the screen, thanks to the way Curtis decides to hold on to the moment.
Kino’s releases of Dead of Night and Dan Curtis’ Monsters are each chock full of bonus features. Fans will be more than pleased to learn that Monsters also contains Curtis’ versions of BOTH Frankenstein and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the latter of which also stars Palace in the dual role, giving a spectacular tour-de-force performance. Elsewhere, on Dead of Night, the original pilot for “A Darkness at Blaisedon” has been included. This little-seen effort gives us an effective and intriguing taste of what the shelved anthology series the creator had been planning for years would have been like. Just as both Dead of Night and Dracula prove a feast for genre fans with their unique approaches to the stories they tell, each of these additional titles serves as a testament to Curtis as both a television pioneer and a horror icon. Great job, Kino. Now do the Dark Shadows films!
Dead of Night and Dan Curtis’ Monsters are both available on Blu-ray and DVD from Kino Lorber.
