Vault of Dark Shadows: House of Dark Shadows Filming Location- Sleepy Hollow Cemetery

To kick off my favorite month of the year, I thought I would talk about an obscure fact about the known town of Sleepy Hollow’s cemetery. This would involve a vampire( well, fictional). After all, vampires go well with Halloween, like chocolate on pretzels.  Do not worry; I will address the obvious elephant in the room in the following article. While I was on a cemetery tour for Sleepy Hollow, the tour guide took us to an empty crypt and told us an interesting fact. Remember the 1970 movie The House of Dark Shadows, well, did you know the cemetery’s receiving vault was used to film a scene? 

Sleepy Hollow Cemetery

First, we need to address the cemetery, as it came way before Dark Shadows, let alone the invention of television. Sleepy Hollow Cemetery opened in 1849 as Terrytown Cemetery. The obvious resident is Washinton Irving, but we will be going into more detail about him in the next story. 

A long time ago, cemeteries would sometimes have to hold crypts to store dead bodies before permanent burials. This was mainly used during winter as heavy machinery that could penetrate the frozen earth had not been invented yet, and grave diggers dug by hand. If you had read my Franklin Castle article, I also explained it as the reason Emma Teidemann was buried two months later after her death. In 1900, a receiving vault was built in the cemetery to remedy the body storage. Since the advancement of technology, they have become obsolete.

Dark Shadows

The television show Dark Shadows, created by Dan Curtis, aired from 1966 to 1971 on ABC. It was a gothic soap opera that focused on the Collins family living in Collinsport, Maine, and their strange and unusual activities. 

Ten months into the airing, the character Barnabas Collins (Johnathan Frid) was put into the show. Barnabas was a 175-year-old vampire with a dramatic early life. He was born in the 1700’s and hexed by a witch with whom he had an affair and then spurned. She used her magic to force him to marry her.  During a chaotic event, the witch summoned a bat from Hell to attack Barnabas, which in turn cursed him into a vampire. He strangles the witch and is later entombed alive by a local witch hunter and later has his coffin nailed by orders of his father.  In 1967 a grave robber who happened to be the Collins family servant breaks into Barnabas’ coffin to steal jewels but awakens him and is attacked. He meets the descendants of the Collins family and lives with them under the guise of being a cousin from England. He is tormented by love, drama and tragedy. 

After his arrival, ratings for the show went through the roof. The show ended in 1971 with 1,225 episodes total and became a cult classic among fans. During its run, it also spawned a couple of movies, one of which used an actual receiving vault for scenes. 

The House of Dark Shadows

In 1971, The House of Dark Shadows was released into theaters. The main filming location was Terrytown, New York. The scenes would be filmed at the Lyndhurst Estate as the Collins’ home and the receiving vault in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. The receiving vault was used to film scenes in the Collins family mausoleum. You can recognize it just with the name Collins and the two statues. 

Post movie years

There are no bodies in the receiving vault, and there have not been any in years. The last time a body was temporarily held in that crypt was during a grave digger’s strike in the 1980s; since then, the vault has been left vacant. Another source I read online claimed that a tour guide had said the gravediggers' strike happened during the filming of The House of Dark Shadows. 

As for the franchise Dark Shadows, the last time the vampire Barnabas graced the silver screen was the 2012 Tim Burton adaptation starring Johnny Depp as Barnabas.

Many tourists often visit inside the crypt. An unsealed vault has a fake skull and picture frame of actor Frid (as Barnabas Collins) to commemorate the limelight in the crypt at one point.  Maybe one day, the vault could see the silver screen again, as long as fans of the show keep their memories alive. The following story discusses a well-known lore that put Sleepy Hollow on the map in American literature.