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| - David first appears in the film costumed as a "ghost," having cut holes in a bedsheet draped over him with the intention of scaring his governess, whom he apparently has not met prior to the incident. As his surprise is spoiled by his being prematurely exposed, he joins the others at the dining table. It is revealed that David believes he sees ghosts, specifically the spirit of his deceased mother. Dr. Hoffman notes that David believes his late mother to be "some sort of cyclic immortality," presumably an allusion to the original series character, Laura Collins, who had been depicted as a human phoenix.
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| abstract
| - David first appears in the film costumed as a "ghost," having cut holes in a bedsheet draped over him with the intention of scaring his governess, whom he apparently has not met prior to the incident. As his surprise is spoiled by his being prematurely exposed, he joins the others at the dining table. It is revealed that David believes he sees ghosts, specifically the spirit of his deceased mother. Dr. Hoffman notes that David believes his late mother to be "some sort of cyclic immortality," presumably an allusion to the original series character, Laura Collins, who had been depicted as a human phoenix. When the film's key protagonist Barnabas Collins arrives at the Collins manor, Collinwood, David is the first member of the family to greet and introduce himself to Barnabas, whereas others, such as David's 15-year-old cousin Carolyn and her mother, Elizabeth Stoddard, initially find the unexpected visitor strange and frightening. Later, when Carolyn expresses a desire for Barnabas not to linger as a guest, David readily remarks, "I like him!" David's opposition to Carolyn's teenage antipathy toward Barnabas may in part be a result of the rivalry between the two cousins (Carolyn refers to David as a "weirdo," warning new governess Victoria that "none of the others have lasted a week," while David announces to the family that Carolyn "touches herself and she sounds like a kitten!"). It seems likely from subsequent events in the film, however, that David genuinely finds Barnabas sympatico, someone like himself who is in touch with the supernatural and is thus viewed as peculiar by more conventional people. Later, Victoria tells Barnabas confidentially that David has begun to idolize him, and Barnabas confronts David's father, Roger, to demand that he either behave as a real parent to the boy or get out of Collinwood. After Roger's abandonment of David, Barnabas uses supernatural agility to save David from a heavy falling object, but in doing so his strange, vampiric nature is more obviously exposed as he inadvertently stumbles into bright sunlight and begins to burst into flame. Though Barnabas suffers no permanent effect, this inescapable manifestation of his strange nature causes David, as well as Victoria (with whom Barnabas has developed a budding romance), to temporarily reconsider their affections for Barnabas. Though he is the youngest and seemingly most vulnerable of the Collins clan, David performs two pivotal heroic acts in the film. First, he rescues Barnabas from peril after the recently freed vampire's centuries-old lover-nemesis Angelique Bouchard has once again chained him in his coffin and apparently left him to languish indefinitely. Secondly, after Angelique rallies the townspeople to demand the arrest of the Collins family and then supernaturally attacks the family inside their home, with witchcraft, David summons his mother Laura's powerful spirit to battle and ultimately destroy Angelique after the witch has the elder Collinses on the verge of defeat and Collinwood itself in flames. David survives Angelique's attack upon Collinwood and is last seen standing alongside his Aunt Elizabeth, cousin Carolyn, and the family retainers, Willie Loomis and Mrs. Johnson, as the survivors look on as their home continues to burn and they speculate about what they will do next.
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