from the eyes of a novice

Rating: 6/10 (21 May 2013)

First, I should say that I have never seen the original "Dark Shadows". I had read about it when I was young, and it didn't really come to my attention until Jonathan Frid died. Maybe that's why I enjoyed Tim Burton's "Dark Shadows" more than most people apparently did. It came across as a tongue-in-cheek adaptation. The main focus is Barnabas Collins's goal of reestablishing his family's former glory, but it partly looks at the era when it takes place. There are the fish-out-of-water situations (Barnabas tries to figure out what sort of witchcraft gets used to operate a TV), and one that affirms the generation gap (the stodgy matriarch asks the governess's opinion of Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War). But there's also the "if only" scene: Barnabas hangs out with some hippies, one of whom predicts that the Vietnam War will be the last war ever. I wish!
Anyway, it's a pretty funny movie, although I did prefer Tim Burton's other movie from last year (his stop-motion adaptation of his earlier "Frankenweenie"). I'll have to see the original series to see just how this movie compares.