To realize his vision for “Dark Shadows,” Dan Curtis handpicked a team of behind-the-scenes professionals. First, he hired veteran TV writer Art Wallace to flesh out his nightmare into a story that would support an ongoing series. Curtis himself would serve as executive producer, handing day-to-day production duties to line producer Robert Costello. Set designer Sy Tomashoff was brought on to design the eerie Collinwood mansion, and composer Robert Cobert was hired to write the “Dark Shadows” atmospheric theme.

To direct his Gothic soap, Curtis hired a true television pioneer. Lela Swift began her career in television in the 1940s as a member of the CBS secretarial pool. As documented in a Paley Center for Media bio, Swift was a protégé of Frances Buss Buch, television’s first woman director. Swift rose through ranks from gopher to assistant stage manager. In 1948, she joined the CBS drama anthology “Studio One” as assistant director. Swift would go on to direct “Studio One” and other shows, including “Suspense” and “The Web,” where, as the Paley Center notes, she gave James Dean his start. Soon she was the only woman directing live dramas during TV’s golden age.

Swift directed nearly half of “Dark Shadows” 1,225 episodes. In 1975, Swift signed on as a director of the long-running daytime soap “Ryan’s Hope.” Swift directed “Ryan’s Hope” for nearly 14 years garnering three daytime Emmy Awards for her work. Swift died in 2015 at the age of 96.

Although the appearance of the centuries old vampire Barnabas Collins heralded a positive change for “Dark Shadows,” and his storyline came to dominate the plot, the character was never intended to be a major part of the show let alone the hero. “The plan was never, of course, to use him beyond sticking a stake in his heart,” Curtis said in a video interview. “[Barnabas] was supposed to be a true marauder. He was Dracula. He was a bad guy.”

As detailed in “Barnabas and Company,” Curtis cast a Canadian stage actor with virtually no television experience named Jonathan Frid as the Collins family’s tortured, blood-drinking ancestor. As documented in “Barnabas and Company,” Frid, a Shakespearean actor, seemed an unlikely choice to play the vampire. In his 40s and not conventionally handsome like most male soap stars, the actor was hardly the image of a leading man. Like Curtis, Frid expected his tenure as Barnabas Collins to be short, and his popularity in the role was wholly unexpected. “It certainly took me by surprise. It took everyone by surprise,” Frid told James Burrell of Rue Morgue. “I thought I might be on for a few weeks or maybe the summer.”

Thanks largely to Frid’s decision to portray Barnabas Collins as an emotionally complex and conflicted character, the actor became an unlikely sex symbol. “The women were insane over him,” Dan Curtis said. “… He had danger about him. … But there was a vulnerability, as well.”

Although Barnabas Collins became the focus of the show, “Dark Shadows” didn’t limit its population of monsters to vampires alone. Over the course of its five-year run, “Dark Shadows explored nearly every classic theme of horror, as SyFy recounts, and the supernatural from folklore, literature, and film. From ghosts to witches to werewolves to zombies, the show that began as Dan Curtis’ modern Gothic homage to Jane Eyre became a veritable monster mash after its slow-burn first year. “Dark Shadows” would even touch on its own Lovecraft-inspired version of the Cthulhu mythos near the end of its run.

Curtis spoke about his love of the horror genre in an extensive interview. “When I was a kid, I used to love horror films,” Curtis said. “Any horror film that came out, I used to go to it. We’re talking about the original ‘Frankenstein,’ all the ‘Wolfman’ stuff with Lon Chaney Jr., and the ‘Dracula’ picture with Bela Lugosi. … I was scared the most by the ‘Dracula’ picture.”

With Barnabas as an analog to Dracula, “Dark Shadows” paid homage to the unholy trinity of Universal monster movies, with its own takes on both “The Wolfman” and “Frankenstein.” Rivalling Barnabas in popularity was Quentin Collins, whose branch of the family was damned to lycanthropy. To round out the trifecta of classic creatures, the series introduced Adam, a hulking, childlike beast cobbled together by a mad scientist from the bodies of the dead.

In late 1969, “Dark Shadows” took a step away from its Gothic roots to explore a cosmic horror storyline based on the work of author H.P. Lovecraft. Over 50 years later, the story of the Leviathans remains a point of contention among “Dark Shadows” fans.

As detailed in “The Television Horrors of Dan Curtis,” the Leviathans saga found Barnabas Collins under the thrall of  an aeons-old race of godlike creatures who ruled earth before the rise of man. Although some of the Leviathans took human form, many chose to remain in their hideous alien shape. Collinsport becomes the focal point of the Leviathans’ plan to take back the planet and destroy humankind.

Although some fans enjoyed the Lovecraftian twist, many more were turned off by the move away from traditional horror tropes and, in the words of Kathleen Resch, publisher of “The World of Dark Shadows,” disliked “the portrayal of Barnabas as the pawn of some greater power.” Unfortunately, the Leviathans plot sent the show into a ratings downward spiral from which it never recovered, with viewership dropping from a high of 20 million to 6 million viewers.

In 2012, Tim Burton, best known for such dark delights as “Ed Wood” and “Beetlejuice,” brought “Dark Shadows” back to the big screen with Johnny Depp as Barnabas Collins.

Although Burton seemed a perfect fit, his take on the material failed to connect with either critics or audiences, reported E! Online. In a review of the film, critic Roger Ebert wrote, “[Burton] approaches his ‘Dark Shadows’ as an amusing trifle, and for a feature-length film, we need more than attitude to sink our teeth in.”

To the anger of “Dark Shadows” fans, Burton placed the film’s failure on its source material, telling Indiewire, “… I grew up on that show and the weird thing about it is it had a cult following, but it was actually pretty bad,” Burton said. “… I always found the tone, even though it was deadly serious, quite comedic. … So I always knew that it was dangerous territory because I tried to capture the tone and yet the tone is funny.”