DARK SHADOWS - archive from 17th May 2012.

Saw 'DARK SHADOWS' last night at my local independant. Tim Burton does it again with his rendition this time of the cult US 60's dark tales TV series of the same name. His stable mate Johnny Depp and wife Helena Bonham Carter star alonside Michelle Pfeiffer, Eva Green and Chloe Grace Moretz. The storyline is weak, but the humour is subtle, the imagining of 1972 coastal Maine is well conceived, the set pieces well done, the effects solid and Johnny Depp in top form as he always is and seemingly relishing the role. 

A worthwhile romp that sees Depp in 1752 charting a course for the new land in America from England as one young Barnabas Collins with parents Joshua and Naomi. Fast forward 20 years and life is good, the family is successful  and they have a coastal fishing port named after them in Maine - Collinsport where they have a waterside canning business for the daily fish haul. The Lord of Collinwood Manor is Barnabas - rich, handsome, debonair and powerful in the local community at least, until that is he falls for Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green) a witch of a woman . . . literally! When things go awry for the two, Bouchard turns Barnabas in to a vampire, and then buries the poor fellow alive for all eternity.

Fast forward again 200 years this time, and Barnabas is awoken from his eternal coffin by a construction crew, and after feasting on their blood in the world of 1972 he discovers that things seem to be a far cry in the dark from the world he left behind two centuries before. Clambering up to a ramshackle Collinwood Manor expecting to take-up where he left-off he soon encounters the last vestiges of a dysfunctional family falling apart at the seems, and shadows of the former wealth and riches he once knew. 

There is Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Michelle Pfeiffer), Dr. Julia Hoffman (Helena Bonham Carter), Carolyn Stoddard (Chloe Grace Moretz), Roger Collins (Johnny Lee Miller), Willie Loomis (Jackie Earle Haley), and even Christopher Lee and Alice Cooper make an appearance too amongst others. With Bouchard still around and making her presence felt even after 200+ years, the old flame is rekindled, but is this just a ploy to recapture the family's wealth, riches and business interests or are their affections genuine? Needless to say there are a few twists and turns, crosses and double crosses as only witches, vampires, ghosts and ghouls and dysfunctional otherworldly family members can conjure.

This is everything you would expect from Tim Burton - the maestro of bringing the unusual & fantastical to life, and worth the price of a ticket for sure. Its is colourful and entertaining but don't expect much more than that. The film was made on a budget of US$150M and came in with a global Box Office haul of just close to US$250M so on that basis not a huge success and it received mixed reviews in the process. It picked up three award wins across the globe and a further eleven nominations. You can judge for yourself now on DVD and Bluray.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-