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511 Gallery
511
Number

505

Timeline

1968

Narrator

Grayson Hall

Writer

Sam Hall

Director

Jack Sullivan

Broadcast

June 11, 1968
(Tuesday)

Recorded

June 9, 1968
(Sunday)

Video

Complete: Disc 54
Collection 8: Disc 2

511 Gallery
We have 13 images of Dark Shadows 511

Barnabas finds Reverend Trask in the basement of the Old House. He walls Barnabas up in the same way as was done to him.

Synopsis[]

In the great house of Collinwood, there is a witch who thinks she is accepted as a wife, as a Collins, never knowing that at the Old House on the estate, there are three people conducting a strange, hopeful seance, a seance designed to summon from the past a raging witch hunter, buried alive behind a wall over two hundred years ago.

Stokes, Julia, and Tony Peterson attempt to contact the ghost of Reverend Trask in the cellar of the Old House. To their amazement, a wall crumbles and reveals the skeleton of the long-dead witch-hunter. Julia and Stokes find David upstairs playing with Dr. Lang's tape recorder. Julia gives it to him to get him to leave. Julia, Stokes and Tony discover Trask's skeleton has disappeared. Barnabas returns to the Old House and finds Trask (or his ghost) in the basement. Trask renders Barnabas unconscious and imprisons him inside the wall in the same way Barnabas did to him.

Memorable quotes[]

Professor Stokes: When people lie to me, I always feel it's because they don't trust me enough to tell me the truth.

Dramatis personae[]

Background information and notes[]

Production[]

Story[]

Bloopers and continuity errors[]

  • During the opening narration, Grayson Hall states that the "witch hunter" has been sealed behind a wall for over 200 years, when in fact it has only been 172 years since 1796.
  • In the previous episode, a long red candle was used in the seance, and in this episode, it is a short blue candle. In fact, the reprise of the end of the previous episode in the teaser is video from the previous episode showing the red candle, then when it switches to new video as the wall crumbles, we see the blue candle.
  • The reflection of a light stand can be seen in the skull of Reverend Trask, which is caused by a piece of tape [or perhaps it is a hinge] attached to the top and main part of the skull.
  • A whistle can be heard off-screen as Professor Stokes and Julia discover the skeleton's absence.
  • At the end of the scene, Professor Stokes climbs the stairs but stops on the second or third step, thinking the camera has already panned left and that he is out of view. [Addendum: This may not be a blooper. Even as he is walking toward the stair and stepping onto them, he is looking around for Trask, and it is just as easy to imagine he just hesitated on the stairs and was continuing to do so since he looks into the basement room.]
  • A camera can be seen on the left of the screen as Professor Stokes asks Reverend Trask for a sign.
  • In Act IV, as Barnabas walks down the stairs to the basement, whispering can be heard from off-stage and then a squeaking sound.
  • As Julia leaves the Old House toward the end of the episode, there is rumbling noise heard from off-stage.
  • Although one might claim that, as a ghost, Reverend Trask's powers are supernatural, it still seems inexplicable that he could somehow put Barnabas behind the wall when much of it remains intact, with only the top part fallen away.

External Links []

Dark Shadows - Episode 511 on the IMDb

Dark Shadows Everyday - Episode 511 - Séance Fiction

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