In his book, Cinema Speculation, auteur director, Quentin Tarantino speaks to his fondness for a number of films and provides readers with a bevy of recommendations. We have previously mined the 2022 tome for suggestions to share with our readers and we are back with another one today. Specifically, we are spotlighting the Pulp Fiction director’s affinity for the 1970 vampire film House of Dark Shadows.
Within the pages of Cinema Speculation, the director speaks to two films from 1970 that made a major impression on him: House of Dark Shadows and A Man Called Horse. Tarantino reports that the initiation scene in A Man Called Horse and Barnabas Collins’ death in House of Dark Shadows both “blew my f**king mind”.
The director continues by saying, “I remember, during both moments, staring at the screen with my mouth wide open, not quite believing a movie could do that.” Tarantino goes on to sum up Barnabas Collins’ onscreen demise as a “blood-squirting slow-motion wooden-stake evisceration.”
If that’s not a compelling endorsement, I don’t know what is. So, if you’re itching to check the film out, you’re in luck. House of Dark Shadows is streaming for free via YouTube Movies & TV as of the publication of this post.
The setup is as follows: Imprisoned in a coffin for more than a hundred years, the vampire Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid) is freed when a local drunk (John Karlen) discovers the Collins crypt and opens the coffin. Now free to roam the earth once more, Barnabas feasts on the blood of the living and obsesses over the family governess, Maggie Evans (Kathryn Leigh Scott), who he believes is his lost love Josette reincarnated. This Gothic drama is a theatrical retelling of the classic television show Dark Shadows.
Stay tuned to the site in the coming days for more recommendations from the masters as we learn them. And make sure to follow us on Twitter so you never miss an update.
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