Darkly Off The Mark

Rating: 5/10 (3 October 2012)

When Dark Shadows was an afternoon staple on TV in the 60s, the character of Barnabas Collins exuded a sense of pathos and doom. Jump ahead to the Tim Burton film and pathos is replaced by slap stick and special effects, which in a remake of a three stooges film might not be so bad, but not here. With the exceptional Johnny Depp teaming yet again with Burton, and joined by a significant cast of Michelle Pffifer, Burton's wife Helena Bonham-Carter, and Eva Green among other very excellent character actors, the story of a vampire and a witch failed to have merit worthy of some significant earlier Burton/Depp encounters. What is wrong is this was never a funny story to begin with, and translated into the sexualized humor of today, Dark Shadows comes forth as sleazy innuendo instead of witty and droll. The kinds of monster creatures from werewolf to witch to vampire to ghostly spectra permit the makeup department and costumer full opportunity to flex, but with a 70s sound track that included Alice Cooper's sync performance, the story, music, and dressing are never one to draw the audience's attention and hold it.
People like Tim Burton's whimsy and fantastical gadgets which are delights in all his films, and Dark Shadows is not the exception, but it is not enough. Depp's Barnabas is cartoonish and aptly formal as an 18th c. gentleman, but perhaps the fangs genre is tired of yet another film in this vein, (yes, pun intended). The moral of the story - family is everything and love endures is warm and fuzzy, but this is not the film in which to preach. Not one of Burton's better film efforts, sadly, nor, is it even in the vampire Gothic class of camp.