Come see the other way the vampires do it

I don't love much of the artwork that has accompanied the home video releases of House of Dark Shadows over the years. Going back to the days of VHS, the movie has always been given staid, lackluster packaging that feels almost designed to be invisible. I'd be stunned if the designers creating these boring, butt-ugly packages had even seen the movie.

Ugh.

So, I decided to make my own ... back in 2016. My first idea was to use some of the grindhouse-style artwork produced for the movie's bonkers 1970 marketing blitz, but I was distracted by something shiny and never finished it. Last week I returned to the idea and started from scratch, keeping two goals in mind. First, there needed to be a sense of joy to the artwork. House of Dark Shadows is about as pure a horror movie as you're ever going to find, and that needs to be celebrated. I also didn't want to hide the movie's age. New movies are being made every day, but they're not making any more movies from 1970 ... using a bullshit Photoshop collage to give a movie a superficial facelift is gross and embarassing. I'm looking in your direction, Star Wars.

The first design is a tribute to the classic cover stories about Dark Shadows from Famous Monsters of Filmland. I used the color scheme of the magazine's feature about House of Dark Shadows, while also trying to invoke the mighty Basil Gogos. The second design is a more traditional Criterion Collection riff, one that relies heavily on Nancy Barrett (just as movie's original marketing campaign did) while reminding people that House of Dark Shadows is a goddamn brutal movie.

But what to do with this art? My first idea was a bad one, but well intentioned. I've seen enough of my work show up on t-shirts and other websites to make me cautious about sharing high-resolution files. Posting them online almost gaurantees that the images would sooner or later make their way to Redbubble. My solution? "Pay for the shipping and the cost of printing and I'll mail you the covers!" Easy, right? But the messages I received asking for prints immediately got to the point where I felt uncomfortable about the volume of financial transations involved. I also didn't want to spend the rest of the month waiting in line at the post office. Realizing I'm an anarchist at heart (and a lazy one, at that) it felt best just to release these images into the wild and let you good people take care of the rest. All I ask is that, should you print and use these covers, please send me a photo when you're done. I'd love to see people actually using these things!

You can download high-resolution images below from Imgur. There are two versions of each: one for DVD, the other for Blu-ray. If you don't already own House of Dark Shadows on home video ... well, you bring shame upon your family. But you can restore that honor by picking up a copy at Amazon HERE.

BLU 

DVD 

BLU 

 DVD