A Difficult But Successful Mix of Comedy, Drama, Thriller, Horror

Rating: 9/10 (17 January 2019)

13 May 2012. It's never easy and usually impossible to direct a good fusion of comedy, drama, horror, but Tim Burton successfully handles the task with this edgy but delightful black comedy that keeps the integrity of the vampire myth while acknowledging the current cultural influence of contemporary novels and television series' role of horror characters in society. There are elements from Practical Magic (1998) and Death Becomes Her (1992) along with same uneasy mix of oil and water as the comedy is interspersed with darker, suggestive bloody horror, and even Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005) in their physical interplay together. In a way, Tim Burton has been able to transform these darker elements placing them into the light of day, transform the more acceptable animated horror that is soften by its more unreal forms of cartoon images such as Coraline (2009) into a idealistic live action romance drama, that heightens the good and evil elements that underlie our own realities in everyday living.
Tim Burton has deliciously and perhaps deliberately created a set design and directorial, script presentation that slightly hyper-exaggerates the original Dark Shadows television melodrama (1966-71) and pays tribute to its more low-budget elements all the while keeping the quality of a full feature film experience. There were some consistently funny out of time ironic scenes, there were some emotionally penetrating scenes, and there was pushing the limits of edgy horror, yet with all the entertainment power at Mr. Burton's disposal.
The everyday ethical dilemma of sexual relationships are on brilliant display in this morning, love spurned, love lost, love found and even the major characters are never stereotyped and have sufficient depth to elevate this movie into a more multi-dimensional experience those those willing to accept the penetrating look at our own foibles. The core theme of eternal love and eternal hatred are strongly integrated into this movie making it a solid foundation on which Burton is able to extend Johnny Depp's reach creating an inspiring and haunting, love story around one of the most famous mythical character's of our times and in a major way is more true to the power of love as powerfully shown in Dracula (1992) at the beginning of the movie but unlike Dracula (1992) which transforms this love into something corrupted by the end of the movie (a masculine form of jealousy), Dark Shadows (2012) stays true to the more resonate message of the vampire myth (a feminine form of idealistic romance).
In many ways, this movie represents the continuing advancement of the craft of film-making and follows in the recent footsteps of other benchmark films such as the comedy-drama All Above Steve (2009), darker animated fantasy of Coraline (2009), screwball comedy of Ghost Town (2008), the underplayed but more subtle humor of Get Smart (2008), and more adult contemporary child adventure of Super 8(2011) and another darker comedy with Adam Sandler in Funny People(2009).