Dark Shadows DVD Collection 5

Rating:
Summary: The Curse begins...
Review: 1795 really begins to heat up! In this DVD set, it is revealed to the viewers how the curse of the vampire was placed on Barnabas Collins, which means this is one set no fan of the show should be without!
There are other things going on as well, lots of other things. From the schemes of the which Angelique, to the triangle of Barnabas, Josette, and Jeremiah, to the arrival of the Reverend Trask to exorcise the witch from Collinwood, and to of course the origins of Barnabas Collins' vampire curse, there is a whole lot of goings-on!
I couldn't recommend this more highly, its pure entertainment. I've loved the show my whole life (even though it ended 12 years before I was born!). If you love Dark Shadows or gothic stories in general, you must get this DVD set, and get the other four sets as well.

Rating:
Summary: The Curse begins...
Review: 1795 really begins to heat up! In this DVD set, it is revealed to the viewers how the curse of the vampire was placed on Barnabas Collins, which means this is one set no fan of the show should be without!
There are other things going on as well, lots of other things. From the schemes of the which Angelique, to the triangle of Barnabas, Josette, and Jeremiah, to the arrival of the Reverend Trask to exorcise the witch from Collinwood, and to of course the origins of Barnabas Collins' vampire curse, there is a whole lot of goings-on!
I couldn't recommend this more highly, its pure entertainment. I've loved the show my whole life (even though it ended 12 years before I was born!). If you love Dark Shadows or gothic stories in general, you must get this DVD set, and get the other four sets as well.

Rating:
Summary: so far,the best!
Review: although all the dark shadows dvd collections so far are great,(a little concearn over collection 4 because of many kinescope recordings),but #5 has to be the best so far.set in 1795,the actors play their lines better,the plots are more suspensefull,and the period costumes are great.they are all a must if you are a true dark shadows fan,but don't miss this one,(collection #5).

Rating:
Summary: My personal favorite
Review: I think I've seen just about every episode of Dark Shadows when they showed it on the Sci-fi Channel, and this particular bunch is my favorite. The characters seem so completely at home in the year 1795; Almost moreso than they do in the present day. Being set in the past is the perfect compliment to the whole gothic atmosphere of the series. These episodes also set up the basis of the love / hate relationship between Barnabus and Angelique, as well as featuring the character we all love to hate, Reverand Trask. You really need to see these episodes to completely understand the motivation of Barnabus in all the others episodes. The whole series is as much about Barnabus as it is about anything or anyone else, and this is where his story begins.

Another neat thing is the accuracy of the historic setting. The man of the house is the master - no one dare cross him. This takes the viewer very convincingly into a different era. And the witch hunt concerning Victoria Winters is emotionally compelling as well. Even such details as spelling the word jail as "gaol", as it is spelled in Britain and would have been spelled in Maine in 1795, is correctly portrayed.

All in all, Dark Shadows always managed to take me completely away from my own life, depositing me within its plot and setting, surrounding me with its characters, and providing a fantastic escape from reality.

Rating:
Summary: Dark Shadows . . .
Review: really hits its' stride in this collection.... this is what we remember as the darkest of shadows! well written and entertainingly acted

Rating:
Summary: Dark Shadows . . .
Review: really hits its' stride in this collection.... this is what we remember as the darkest of shadows! well written and entertainingly acted

Rating:
Summary: Adventures begin in 1795!
Review: The much-anticipated 1795 Flashback begins in DS DVD Collection 5 (VHS Volumes 29-36). In these episodes, Victoria Winters has trouble accepting the fact that she has travelled over 200 years into the past. Barnabas Collins' fiance, Josette duPres arrives, and the evil witch Angelique Bouchard vows to destroy their romance. She enslaves family servant Ben Stokes to assist her. Eventually she ruins the plans and sets a plague on the entire family, resulting in deaths. Abagail Collins and Natalie duPres begin to suspect Victoria of being the witch and the cause of all the trouble at Collinwood. The fanatical witch-hunter Reverend Trask arrives on a quest to find and destroy the witch. After discovering that Angelique is really the witch, Barnabas shoots her, however she places a vampire curse on Barnabas.

Bonuses include interviews with Jonathan Frid (Barnabas Collins), Kathryn Leigh Scott (Josette duPres), Jerry Lacy (Reverend Trask), and music composer Robert Cobert.

The 1795 Flashback continues in the next collection.

Rating:
Summary: Adventures begin in 1795!
Review: The much-anticipated 1795 Flashback begins in DS DVD Collection 5 (VHS Volumes 29-36). In these episodes, Victoria Winters has trouble accepting the fact that she has travelled over 200 years into the past. Barnabas Collins' fiance, Josette duPres arrives, and the evil witch Angelique Bouchard vows to destroy their romance. She enslaves family servant Ben Stokes to assist her. Eventually she ruins the plans and sets a plague on the entire family, resulting in deaths. Abagail Collins and Natalie duPres begin to suspect Victoria of being the witch and the cause of all the trouble at Collinwood. The fanatical witch-hunter Reverend Trask arrives on a quest to find and destroy the witch. After discovering that Angelique is really the witch, Barnabas shoots her, however she places a vampire curse on Barnabas.

Bonuses include interviews with Jonathan Frid (Barnabas Collins), Kathryn Leigh Scott (Josette duPres), Jerry Lacy (Reverend Trask), and music composer Robert Cobert.

The 1795 Flashback continues in the next collection.

Rating:
Summary: SINK YOUR TEETH ... YES, AGAIN!
Review: There are grand operas, horse operas and soap operas. But we're not horsing
around when we say that there's only one grand, gothic soap opera --- the
indestructible Dark Shadows.
Premiering on ABC in 1966, it ran for five years, chalking up 1,225
episodes. And now it's time, once again, to sink our teeth into one of TV's more
quixotic offerings. Pass the garlic, please.
And pass the DVD sets issued by MPI Home Video, dedicated folk who
have worked tirelessly to bring the series out of its forgotten shadows and into
an era of rediscovery. Each of the 5 DVD sets contain 4 discs, a chronicle of
Dark Shadows episodes --- approximately 75 hours of our favorite fanged ghoul,
Barnabas Collins, and the dark doings set in the small fictional fishing village of
Collinsport, Maine. Be forewarned, however, that as much as we have a stake in
the revival of the series, we question why MPI only included episodes #211 to
#412. (We asked the question, but they never answered. Talk about being kept
in dark shadows.)
The late '60s were an odd time in our cultural history, a kind of a
maturation into reality after the bland '50s and a precursor for the entitlement
and permissiveness of the '70s. Violence permeated our society and its
entertainment ... and escape was the order of the day. Dark Shadows brought us
to a strange set of performers playing even a stranger set of characters.
Grayson Hall and Joan Bennett came from the movies, Jonathan Frid and David
Selby came from the stage, and they were supported by actors and actresses
who had spent literally decades gracing some of the most popular soap operas
from radio and television.
Adding to the escapism was the time element. You were never quite sure
what century you were in while visiting the New England branch of Transylvania.
It could be modern-day Collinsport, or it could be the late 18th century.
Performers could be playing the present-day characters, or their great
grandparents. Still, one thing was sure: High on Windows Hill stood the family
manse, Collinswood (the name most likely came from Wilkie Collins, the author
whose gothic gems graced book stalls in late Victorian times), and, regardless of
the century, it was here that the haunted Collinses plied their depraved trade.
Dark Shadows had a narrative link in a way, but the performers never
seem to know exactly where they are, were they've been, or, most importantly,
where they were going. To be sure, there were the normal and accepted gaffs of
daytime television, such as a boom mike boinking a performer on the head or
people tripping over cables. But, there was the added zest of poor Joan Bennett
looking confused, calling performers by their real names, and trying to cover
rising panic with a look of sheer exotic boredom. Bennett made her first film well
before the talky revolution, but she hadn't seen or heard everything yet, until she
sojourned into daytime television.
As a matter of fact, the growth and development of the television show
parallels to a greater or lesser extent the growth and development of theater of
the absurd in America. The players and the set remained basically the same, but
the period and action varied wildly. And, ultimately it didn't matter where you
were, or where you thought you were, or where you thought you were going,
because you were under the spell of the Collinses, in Collinsport, and they were
in control. If the reality seemed fractured, hallucinatory and vaguely scary, well,
then, wasn't life exactly like that?
Dan Curtis, who also brought us War and Remembrance, The Winds of
War, The Night Stalker, Dracula and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (both with Jack
Palance) and the cult film Burnt Offerings, spawned the series. But the greatest
success of this veritable one-man cottage industry is undoubtedly Dark
Shadows. The brooding gothic setting, the sprawling, elephantine plot twists and
the idiosyncratic, not to say colliding, acting styles come together to create
something unique and strangely satisfying.
For the last 20 years, there has been an annual Dark Shadows Festival,
held either in the Los Angeles or New York area. This year, it will be held in
Brooklyn at the end of August. An ominous press release informs us that this
year marks the final full fledged festival, the last of its line.
Knowing the denizens of Dark Shadows, we don't believe it for a moment!

Rating:
Summary: Perfect Gothic Atmosphere
Review: Watching the origin of Barnabas was eerie and suspenseful, and I never felt more sorry for Barnabas as in the second to last episode of this set. Some may find that the first ten episodes are somewhat listless, with Angelique casting one spell after the other before finally deciding what to do. That's why I rated five stars instead of six.

An added note for non-US buyers: Although not stated, this set of DVDs and all the previous in the collection are code free (region code 0), meaning you can watch them on any dvd player in the world. Bravo to MPI Home Video for doing this!