Dark Shadows
Directed by Tim Burton
Screenplay by Seth Grahame-Smith from a story by John August and Seth Grahame-Smith
Based on the television series created by Dan Curtis
Starring Johnny Depp, Eva Green, Bella Heathcote, Michelle Pfeiffer, Helena Bonham Carter, Jackie Earle Haley, Jonny Lee Miller, Chloe Grace Moretz, and Guilliver McGrath. Cameos by Alice Cooper, Christopher Lee, Jonathan Frid, Kathryn Leigh Scott, Lara Parker, and David Selby.
Fair warning: I’d never seen the television series Dark Shadows, so this is a review of only the movie. And at that, I went in knowing very little about it.
Well, I was entranced. After a brief start in the mid-1700s, first in England, and then in Maine, we have all the background we need. The Collins family are wealthy merchants, made so by their fishing interests. In the New World, they’ve built a business, a town (Collinsport), and then a mansion (Collinwood). Young Barnabas, scion of the family, is the up-and-comer. A nice young man, in love with a lovely young lady, Josette (Bella Heathcote).
Unfortunately, Barnabas (Johnny Depp) has also been having an affair with a scullery maid, Angelique (Eva Green). She’s a very possessive maid, who is not willing to let him go. But unlike most such relationships, this one is tarnished by the fact that the maid is also a witch. Through magical means, she causes the death of Barnabas’s parents, and then forces Josette to throw herself off a cliff. Barnabas, unable to live without her, follows her in her plummet, but Angelique curses him on the way down, turning him into an immortal vampire, so that the fall will not kill him.
Several years pass, as Barnabas the vampire finds ways to continue to live with his curse, and maintain the family fortunes. His success is not at all what Angelique wanted, and she turns the town against him. They bury him in a chained, locked casket: buried semi-alive.
And now, the opening credits.
Fast-forward to 1972, and a construction crew unknowingly digs up and opens the coffin in which Barnabas has suffered for two centuries. They die, and he’s back.
Waking in the world of 1972, Barnabas is naturally, well, a fish out of water. And Johnny Depp plays him perfectly. He’s still wearing the finery in which he was buried in the 1770s. And he’s amazed and confused by the new version of the New World he finds, from the paved street to the demon lights rushing at him along it, to the bright double-arched sign of some demon (well, a fast food restaurant). Realizing he’s still in Collinsport, he makes his way to Collinwood, only to find the mansion he helped design and build is falling into disrepair, and the family’s fortunes with it. The once-proud, once-mighty, once-beloved Collins family has been reduced to four people living in near-poverty as the mansion falls down around them, their fishing business almost completely bankrupt. Family matriarch Elizabeth (Michelle Pfeiffer) is trying to maintain their grip, knowing it’s nearly impossible; she is the only one Barnabas tells of his true nature. Her 15-year-old daughter Carolyn (Chloe Grace Moretz) is an alienated, sullen teenager with a secret of her own. Elizabeth’s brother Roger (Jonny Lee Miller) is both troubled and shallow, far more interested in his own comfort than his family. Roger’s son, 10-year-old David (Gully McGrath) is troubled since the death of his mother, but he’s quite certain he talks with her ghost.
Also living in the house, as the extended family, are: caretaker Willie Loomis (Jackie Earle Haley), who’s just as happy to be idle and drunk; psychiatrist Dr. Julia Hoffman (Helena Bonham Carter, who was completely unrecognizable, and wonderful), who came to treat David for a month, and stayed for three years (she, too, is happier when she’s drunk and unproductive); and the enigmatic Mrs. Johnson (Ray Shirley), who’s also tasked with keeping up the place, but can barely move herself, let alone talk. Also, recently arrived in the household, is governess Victoria “call me Vicky” Winters (Bella Heathcote), who is hiding several secrets of her own, but who bears a remarkable resemblance to dear departed Josette.
Barnabas remembers the Collins motto—”Family is the only real wealth”—and he sets out to restore his.
Money’s easy; respect is more difficult. And overcoming inertia and a powerful enemy is nigh unto impossible. But that’s the path on which Barnabas sets himself. And with a lot of laughs, a few cringe-worthy moments, and some truly dark scenes, we’ll see the Collins family try to redeem itself and throw off its centuries-old oppressor.
Johnny Depp is wonderful as the lost-in-time, confused and well-meaning vampire Barnabas. He’s not a sparkly, modern vampire: he knows he’s an evil creature, and knows he must do evil to exist, yet he’ll also apologize before taking a life. My only problem with his portrayal was hearing Captain Jack Sparrow whenever he opened his mouth. Fortunately, that dissonance faded as the movie went on, and the character of Barnabas asserted himself over the actor.
Eva Green is stunning and wonderful as the evil platinum blonde Angie, owner of the cannery that’s putting the Collins’ out of business. I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
Michelle Pfeiffer is remarkably understated as the matriarch of a sinking family, trying to hold things together.
Bella Heathcote has a wide-eyed innocence masking a much darker core, and she’s completely believable.
And keep your eyes open for some nice cameos: they’re both fun, and necessary to the movie.
The sets are great, the music (some composed by Danny Elfman, the rest cherry-picked from the early 1970s) is very engaging, and the acting sells the whole. I liked the film. It’s mostly comic and campy, but it gets horrific for a time midway through, and that change threw me. Nevertheless, I very much enjoyed it.