Filming took place at Lyndhurst Estate in Tarrytown, New York, with additional footage at nearby Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.

Later on at the ball, he is introduced to young David Collins' governess and Jeff's girlfriend, Maggie Evans, and is instantly smitten with her, as she bears a striking resemblance to his long-lost fiancée, Josette du Pres.

A shaken Willie takes Carolyn back home; she slowly walks to the doorway, but she is soon discovered slumped in the doorway—dead—by the maid, Mrs. Johnson.

Jeff soon returns, and he is informed of the family history by Stokes and Roger and that Barnabas intends to make Maggie his bride.

Maggie, now revived, is rescued by Jeff, both briefly observing the bodies of the presumably dead vampire and Willie Loomis before departing the ruined chapel.

Dark Shadows producer Dan Curtis began pitching the idea of a film based on his gothic soap opera sometime in 1968.

Principal shooting took place at several historic locations, including the Lyndhurst Estate in Tarrytown, New York, where the production had to work around the scheduled public tours of the house.

Additional footage was shot at nearby Sleepy Hollow Cemetery; parts of the locales appeared on the Dark Shadows series as well.

Unrestricted by TV's censors, the film is far more graphically violent than its television counterpart, with dripping vampire bites and bloody deaths.

Barnabas, for example, was trapped in his coffin on the TV show by a failed writer who wanted to use the vampire's life story as the basis for a novel.

The preview version of the film (shown Aug. 24, 1970 at NYC's The DeMille Theatre on 47th Street) included a scene where young David Collins pretends to hang himself.

The second film was originally supposed to bring back Barnabas, and was to be called Curse of Dark Shadows (according to Famous Monsters of Filmland).

[citation needed] Before pre-production could begin, however, the series had gone off the air, and Jonathan Frid, fearing being typecast as Barnabas, had moved on to other things.

Instead, Night of Dark Shadows was made, focusing on Collinwood after new heir Quentin Collins (David Selby) takes over.

It is also available on iTunes, on the PlayStation 3 Movie Network (Digital DVD quality), and for rental at Amazon Unbox, now called Prime Video.