Dark Mansions

Linda Purl plays a writer hired to write a biography of the matriarch of the wealthy Drake family. When she arrives at the clifftop Drake estate, every member of the family is startled by her resemblance to Yvette, the deceased wife of one of the sons - and whose ghost may be haunting the mansion.

This TV movie started out as a pilot for a show that never got picked up. The intention, apparently, was to create a cross between Dynasty and Dark Shadows. In that respect, at least, they succeeded - from the moment the opening titles begin, with shots of clifftop mansions and waves crashing on the rocks below, accompanied by dramatic, blaring horns and sweeping strings. Unfortunately, that's the best part. The movie's origin as a pilot is easily given away by unresolved plot threads, and characters that serve no purpose. The acting is typical of soap operas (surprisingly, given a good cast that features Purl, Michael York, Joan Fontaine, Dan O'Herlihy, and Nicollette Sheridan - maybe it was deliberate?), nearly every scene ends with someone storming out of a room, it shamelessly rips off one of the most famous moments of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca (badly), and on top of all that, because it was a pilot, instead of a new ending that wraps everything up, we get a sudden freeze-frame and a dozen lines of text onscreen telling us what eventually happened! 😂 As much as I wanted to like it, I just couldn't. 5/10.