Prime time remake of the classic soap opera. Governess Victoria Winters (Joanna Going) goes to the town of Collinsport to take care of young David Collins (a VERY young Joseph Gordon-Levitt). She stays a Collinwood a HUGE mansion run by Elizabeth (Jean Simmons) and Roger (Roy Thinnes) Collins. Meanwhile, in the local cemetery, good for nothing Willie Loomis (Jim Fyfe) opens a coffin looking for jewels. This resurrects Barnabas Collins (Ben Cross) a vampire and he proceeds to attack the Collins family while romancing Victoria who is the resurrection of his dead fiancée. Got all that? <br /><br />I'm a big fan of the old TV series. It was badly acted and moved slow but it was full of vampires, werewolves, ghosts and witches and it was never boring. It played on afternoons (around 3:30 or so) and kids ran home to see it. In 1990 NBC decided to revamp it as a night time soap and started it off with this 5 hour movie (shown over two nights). The plot for this was a combination of the old TV series and the "House of Dark Shadows" movie. The acting is pretty terrible. All the younger women in the cast are beautiful with limited acting ability. It's pretty obvious they were chosen for their looks and nothing else. Going is OK but the rest are hopeless. The same goes for the guys (although Michael T. Weiss and Gordon-Levitt try). Ben Cross, in the main role, is tall and handsome but lacks the charisma to make Barnabas work. (In Cross' defense he hated doing the series--and it comes through loud and clear). However it does have an eerie atmosphere, was shot on beautiful locations and was pretty bloody for a TV series. The fast pace helps too. This led to a short-lived (4 months) TV series which wasn't bad either. So this is worth seeing but it ends with a cliffhanger leading into the series. I give it an 8.