The odious Gregory Trask is plotting to murder his fabulously wealthy wife, the former Judith Collins, before she can change her will. He has made an arrangement with Aristide, a sadist who is fleeing a demon his former master conjured up from the depths of Hell to stalk him. He promises to lay the demon to rest once Aristide has murdered Judith.
For her part, Judith has made an arrangement of her own with a man named Tim Shaw. Tim is not appreciably more scrupulous than Aristide, and he hates Trask with a passion. He is also free of the time constraints that the stalking demon imposes on Aristide.
Judith goes upstairs to her bedroom, where Aristide is lurking behind the curtains. The scene looks rather like that in the 1954 film Dial M for Murder, in which a man hides behind curtains while waiting to murder a woman whose husband is blackmailing him into the crime. It is likely that Dial M for Murder was on the minds of the makers of Dark Shadows at this time, since star Jonathan Frid had just missed four and a half weeks while playing the lead in a stage production of it in the Chicago area.
In Dial M for Murder, the wife survives the attempt, killing the would-be assassin. Judith also survives, but not through her own action. Instead, the demon, whose name is Garth Blackwood, bursts into the room. Aristide escapes through the window. Trask enters and finds Blackwood still in the room. Blackwood menaces him with a heavy chain he carries, then leaves in pursuit of Aristide.
Judith persuades Trask to join her in a glass of brandy. He takes a sip, she does not. He passes out, and Tim enters. When Trask awakens, he finds himself in a room in the west wing of the house. Tim is with him in the room. Tim tells Trask goodbye, then springs out the door and locks it behind him. When Trask opens the door shortly after, he finds that Tim and Judith are bricking him in.
It’s rather much to ask us to believe that the mortar dries instantly, leaving Trask unable to push the wall down. To be bricked up in Collinwood is the fate of all Trasks- Gregory’s ancestor, the original Reverend Trask, was bricked up in an alcove in the basement of the Old House on the estate in #442 by the vengeful Barnabas Collins. Barnabas chained that Trask up, giving the mortar time to set. Moreover, Barnabas chose a dark little out-of-the-way spot in a vacant house. This is in a bedroom suite that Judith’s brother Quentin uses. Most of Quentin’s stuff is out of the room, but there is still some furniture in there and a bunch of candles. You have to wonder what she will tell Quentin when he comes home. For some time they’ve been going on about how vast the great house is, at one point saying that no one had ever counted the number of rooms in it, so it is just bizarre that Judith picked a room that someone is on his way to sleep in.
Dark Shadows Commentary 