Dark Shadows

WARNING: This review is hidden because it reveals the content of the film.
Click here to show this review. “Dark Shadows” shows promise at first, with tried-and-true but effective “fish out of water” humour. From there, the plot gets progressively unsure of where it wants to go, until it starts throwing stuff at the screen haphazardly. I don’t know if anyone could’ve salvaged a workable film from the woeful screenplay by Seth Grahame-Smith but director Tim Burton doesn’t seem to be trying very hard.

In 1760, Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp) breaks the heart of his servant, Angelique (Eva Green). After she uses dark magic to kill Barnabas' fiancée (Bella Heathcote) she transform him into a vampire - so that he will outlive anyone he ever loves. Soon after, he is captured by villagers and buried "alive" in a coffin. Escaping from his prison in 1972, Barnabas finds his descendants in financial ruin, his beloved reincarnated as their new nanny (Bella Heathcote as Victoria), and Angelique still alive and still obsessed with him.

After the fact, it’s obvious Barnabas is the film’s main character. While watching, it isn’t so clear. You think Victoria will be a major player but she’s an afterthought with no personality. Most of the character feel like director Tim Burton self-indulging a little by tossing a bone to his favourite performers (Christopher Lee has a minor role which can’t have taken more than a day to shoot) or like inclusions put there just because they had an equivalent in the original 1966 television series. The film lasts nearly two hours. If you cut out Helena Bonham Carter as the Collins family doctor who does very little doctoring, the kinda-sorta misfit son David (Gully McGrath), his ne’er-do-well father (Johnny Lee Miller), the rebellious teenage daughter (Chloë Grace Moretz), the elderly maid (Ray Shirley) and the drunken groundskeeper (Jackie Earle Haley), you probably wouldn’t have more than 40-minutes’ worth of a movie. That’s not much but it’d be tighter, focused and more enjoyable. None of these people have anything to do, and the less said about Alice Cooper’s cameo as himself, the better.

It feels like a bad soap opera that’s being made-up on the spot. Stuff just happens and sure, sometimes it’s funny but nothing’s building up to anything bigger. Now Dr. Hoffman is seducing Barnabas. Ok? Why? So we can cement that everyone finds Johnny Depp in vampire makeup irresistible? I guess that’s a thing but I don’t really get it.

Then, finally, a facsimile of a plot rears its ugly head. Ah! So the film is about Angelique and Barnabas’ rivalry. Wait. She waited 200 years for him to escape from the box she buried him in and in the meantime, she’s been using her fishing business to drive the Collins out of house and home? What a lame way to use your magic powers. It all builds to a lacklustre conclusion in which people are thrown around by magic. I think we’re supposed to feel upset about doomed romances and people caught between two irreconcilable worlds but so little time has been spent fleshing out the mushy stuff you just don’t care.

As an 18th-century vampire struggling to keep up with “modern” technology and sensibilities, Johnny Depp does well. He delivers all of the film’s best moments and yeah, some of it you’ve seen before but it’s still effective. The costumes, sets and art direction are also quite good so visually, "Dark Shadows" is pleasant to look at - especially when Eva Green is seducing Barnabas. Just about everything else is cringe-inducing and tone-deaf. Sexy as she may look, Green is terrible in this role and I can’t even blame her. No one shines thanks to the weak screenplay and scatterbrained direction torn between drama, horror and comedy. I nearly completely forgot about Michelle Pfeiffer, which is too bad because her character actually contributes something of value to the story.

The first time I saw “Dark Shadows”, I didn’t love it but found things to enjoy and gave it a mildly positive review. Re-examining it now, 3 stars seems way too generous. Although never awful, “Dark Shadows” doesn't give you many reasons to watch it. (April 5, 2019)