As a cultural movement, the Italian Renaissance affected only a small part of the population. Italy was the most urbanized region of Europe, but three quarters of the people were still rural peasants. For this section of the population, life remained essentially unchanged from the Middle Ages.
Although I enjoyed the book, The Hellbound Heart, the movie version, Hellraiser - with the awesomely cheesy blue and yellow 80's FX - is a bit better and mainly because it was more fully realized.
Dark Shadows is based on the television soap opera 'Dark Shadows' (1966-1971). The screenplay for the movie was developed by American screenwriters Seth Grahame-Smith and John August. Paperback Library published a successful series of Gothic-themed novels based on Dark Shadows in 1966.