Film Review: Dark Shadows

Dark Shadows. Rated M (fantasy themes and violence). 113 minutes. Directed by Tim Burton. Written by Seth Grahame-Smith. Based on the television series created by Dan Curtis.

Verdict: Tim Burton respectfully pays a debt while the rest of us are left to wonder why.

Not having seen Dark Shadows – the American television series that inspired this latest collaboration between Mr Burton and his frequent collaborator Johnny Depp (they have made eight films together) – you may find yourself with a distinct disadvantage. Without any knowledge of the series Mr Burton adored as a young boy, we’re left to consider his Dark Shadows on its own merits – which, regrettably, are few and far between.

When Barnabas Collins (Mr Depp) spurns the romantic advances of the witch Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green), she forces his lover Josette DuPres (Bella Heathcote) to leap to her death from a clifftop before turning Barnabas into a vampire and burying him alive. Fast forward to 1972, and when an unfortunate group of construction workers inadvertently release Barnabas from his coffin, the ever-polite vampire returns to his family estate to restore it and his family name to their former glory. When Angelique discovers that Barnabas is free again, centuries old passions and tensions are rekindled – with calamitous consequences.

The laughs, such as they are, originate from Barnabas’s collision with production designer Rick Heinrichs’ picture-perfect recreation of the iconic 1970s and the superb, Burtonesque Collinwood Manor. The performances around Mr Depp’s masterfully understated posturing through the lead role are mostly uneven, a result of Mr Grahame-Smith’s script that fails to go the distance when it matters most. Instead, convoluted subplots (particularly the one involving Ms Heathcote’s reincarnated Josette) remain annoyingly weak, disconnected and unformed.

Visually, as we come to expect from Mr Burton, the film is brimming with grand, atmospheric flourishes and flair – all stylishly photographed by cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Amelie). But even that is not really enough to help ease the slippery sense that this Dark Shadows somehow means more to those intimately involved in its creation than it could ever possibly hope to mean to its audience.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.