prime time remake of the classic soap opera . governess victoria winter ( joanna go ) go to the town of collinsport to take care of young david collins ( a very young joseph gordon levitt ) . she stay a collinwood a huge mansion run by elizabeth ( jean simmons ) and roger ( roy thinnes ) collins . meanwhile and in the local cemetery and good for nothing willie loomis ( jim fyfe ) open a coffin look for jewel . this resurrect barnabas collins ( ben cross ) a vampire and he proceed to attack the collins family while romance victoria who be the resurrection of his dead fiancée . get all that . i be a big fan of the old tv series . it be badly act and move slow but it be full of vampire and werewolf and ghost and witch and it be never bore . it play on afternoon ( around 3 represent30 or so ) and kid run home to see it . in 1990 nbc decide to revamp it a a night time soap and start it off with this 5 hour movie ( show over two night ) . the plot for this be a combination of the old tv series and the house of dark shadow movie . the acting be pretty terrible . all the young woman in the cast be beautiful with limited act ability . it pretty obvious they be choose for their look and nothing else . go be ok but the rest be hopeless . the same go for the guy ( although michael t. weiss and gordon levitt try ) . ben cross and in the main role and be tall and handsome but lack the charisma to make barnabas work . ( in cross defense he hat do the series and it come through loud and clear ) . however it do have an eerie atmosphere and be shoot on beautiful location and be pretty bloody for a tv series . the fast pace help too . this lead to a short lived ( 4 month ) tv series which wasn not bad either . so this be worth see but it end with a cliffhanger lead into the series . i give it an 8 .