Every Version of Dark Shadows: a cross-media guide

The House That Dan Curtis Built

Dark Shadows began not as a novel or a play but as a television experiment. Producer Dan Curtis pitched ABC on a gothic daytime drama in 1966, inspired by a dream he had about a young woman on a train traveling to a brooding old estate. The show launched quietly as a straightforward period melodrama set at Collinwood, a Maine manor belonging to the wealthy, eccentric Collins family. Ratings were poor. Then, in April 1967, Curtis and head writer Art Wallace took a gamble: they introduced Barnabas Collins, a 175-year-old vampire who had been chained in a coffin in the family mausoleum. The show transformed overnight. Barnabas, played by Jonathan Frid with a mixture of menace and self-loathing, became one of television's first genuinely sympathetic monster protagonists, and Dark Shadows became a cultural phenomenon, airing five days a week to an audience of millions.

From that originating series, the property has spawned feature films, a prime-time revival, a Hollywood blockbuster, audio dramas, novels, comics, and games. Each generation of creators has found something new to do with the Collins curse.

Every Version of Dark Shadows

The original series and every major adaptation, in order

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House of Dark Shadows

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Dark Shadows Through the Decades

1966Original ABC daytime series premieres Dark Shadows
1970First theatrical film, set in the series' universe House of Dark Shadows
1971Second theatrical film, shifting focus from vampires to ghosts Dark Shadows
1971Original series ends after 1,225 episodes
1991NBC prime-time revival with Ben Cross as a harder-edged Barnabas Dark Shadows
2003Big Finish Productions begins the ongoing audio drama series, reuniting cast members from the original run
2012Tim Burton and Johnny Depp reimagine the story as a period comedy Dark Shadows
2014WB Television develops a new pilot that does not go to series

The definitive version is still the original

The 1966 ABC series is irreplaceable not despite its limitations but partly because of them. The live-to-tape production, the flubbed lines left in, the sets that wobble: all of it creates an atmosphere no polished remake has matched. Jonathan Frid's Barnabas is genuinely conflicted, genuinely frightening, and genuinely pitiable in a way no subsequent actor has quite replicated. At 1,225 episodes it asks a real commitment, but even sampling the run from mid-1967 through the Leviathan storyline reveals a show doing things with serialized horror storytelling that television is still learning from.

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The 1991 revival deserves a second look

The NBC prime-time series ran for only twelve episodes before Gulf War news preemptions ate its ratings, which is genuinely unfair to a show that had found its footing. Ben Cross brought a harder, colder edge to Barnabas than Jonathan Frid's tragic romantic, and the production had the best values the property had ever seen on television. It was structured as a proper serialized drama rather than a soap, and the modern audience that found it on streaming has largely come away surprised by how well it holds up. The real misfortune is that it was cancelled before it could finish what it started.

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The 2012 film mistakes the assignment

Tim Burton and Johnny Depp treat Barnabas Collins as a straight-man in a fish-out-of-water comedy. That is a legitimate creative choice. It is not Dark Shadows. The original show was camp, yes, but it was sincere camp, rooted in genuine dread and romantic tragedy. The 2012 film has no dread in it whatsoever. It is a watchable ninety minutes and a decent Burton visual exercise, but anyone coming to it hoping to understand what made the original such a phenomenon will leave more puzzled than when they arrived.

Dark Shadows