Editor’s Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on May 9, 2012, and we’re proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
Tim Burton has remade everything from science-fiction favorites to children’s classics, but Dark Shadows marks the first time that he (or anyone in decades) has brought a TV soap opera to the big screen. The attempt to maintain a semblance of fidelity to the source has its pleasures, but also proves to be the movie’s downfall; it suffers from what feels like an attempt to cram a few seasons’ worth of plot into a two-hour movie.
Burton and screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith certainly seem to have the right idea for the first reel or so, opening with a marvelous eight-minute, 1795-set prologue outlining the history of fishing-industry scion turned vampire Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp). It’s ripe Gothic fantasy full of atmosphere and tragedy, a cheesed-off witch and an ill-fated innocent, all set to a swoony Danny Elfman score. When the action jumps ahead to 1972, the music changes to the Moody Blues’ “Nights in White Satin,” the perfect accompaniment for the main-title sequence of Maggie Evans (Bella Heathcote) traveling through the wilds of Maine to answer a want ad for a governess, changing her name to Victoria Winters along the way.
What she finds when she arrives at the gloomy Collinwood mansion is a family that’s a, ahem, shadow of its former self. Matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Michelle Pfeiffer—good to see her back) presides over a household also consisting of her ne’er-do-well brother Roger (Jonny Lee Smith), her sullen 15-year-old daughter Carolyn (Chloë Grace Moretz) and Roger’s young son David (Gully McGrath), who’s had severe but understandable emotional issues since the death of his mother. Already on hand to supposedly treat him is psychiatrist Julia Hoffman (Helena Bonham Carter in a flaming red wig), but she has a hard time staying sober long enough to do him any good.
No sooner has Victoria settled in at Collinwood than a construction crew unearths the coffin in which Barnabas has been trapped for two centuries, and open it up—to their immediate and very short-lived regret. Essentially inverting the basic premise of Grahame-Smith’s best-selling novel Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (also coming to the movies this summer, with Burton as a producer), Dark Shadows becomes the story of a bloodsucker thrust into a world of mortals that he has trouble comprehending. Baffled by early encounters with automobiles and the like, he soon makes his way to Collinwood, and that’s where the trouble begins—for the characters and the movie.
The trailer, suggesting that Dark Shadows was being played as a spoof, caused consternation among many who viewed it, but the real issue is that as it goes on, the movie can’t seem to decide if it wants to stay true to the Gothic sensibility or send it up. While it never takes itself entirely seriously, there are many moments that make a play for honest engagement with the characters, punctuated by bits that turn the whole thing into a joke. Many of these have to do with Barnabas’ reactions to such period staples as lava lamps, macramé, troll dolls, etc.—and the chuckle factor diminishes as it becomes clear that the fish-out-of-water theme isn’t going to amount to much more than easy gags, to diminishing returns. (An early moment when Barnabas mistakes a popular fast-food sign for the mark of the devil could have been developed in funny ways, but the film doesn’t even try.)
More problematic is the way the plot spins off into too many directions, dealing with too many different characters, preventing it from building up a head of steam. Beyond the Collinwood bunch, there’s also Angie, a.k.a. Angelique (Eva Green), the ageless witch responsible for Barnabas’ original predicament and now head of a fishing company that has practically driven the Collinses’ into the ground (or water). The love-hate conflict between Angelique and Barnabas—which at one point combusts into an acrobatic, destructive sex scene that’s fitfully amusing when it should be explosively funny—leads to an entire subplot in which Barnabas helps his new family to revivify their business. While these efforts do allow for a welcome cameo, they’re a distraction from what should be the main plot, as are indulgences like an appearance by Alice Cooper, performing at a dress ball Barnabas puts on (occasioning a conversation about how the Collinses have always held big balls—shouldn’t AC/DC have been the musical guest?).
That key storyline involves the burgeoning romance between Barnabas and Victoria, who’s the spitting image of Josette, the true love he lost back in the 18th century. Big-blue-eyed Heathcote is instantly appealing, and has a nice rapport with Depp, yet Victoria and her relationship with Barnabas are offscreen for too-long stretches of time, and toward the end someone remarks that she has fallen under a spell that we haven’t actually seen. But before that can be resolved, there has to be the obligatory big spectacular climax, which incorporates a revelation about one character that comes completely out of nowhere.
Dark Shadows is a frustrating film to experience, because it’s certainly not unpleasant to watch. Cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel, a newcomer to the Burton camp, has teamed with the director’s regulars like production designer/Sleepy Hollow Oscar-winner Rick Heinrichs, costume designer Colleen Atwood and the assorted FX and makeup artisans to make Shadows as eye-filling as one could hope for, and the cast is fine company. Depp, sporting an unearthly pallor, fangs and pointy fingers, strikes just the right balance between melancholy and archness. He finds a consistency of tone for his performance that eludes the film, which at one point has Barnabas sharing a few silly, good-natured laughs with some likable new acquaintances, quipping about killing them all—and then actually doing so, albeit offscreen.
Having never watched the original series, I’ll leave it to others to judge Dark Shadows in terms of faithfulness to the source. What can be said is that in terms of the Burton canon, it’s a disappointment coming after Hollow and Sweeney Todd, which possessed a focus the new film lacks. The director and Depp (also one of the producers) are longtime fans of the show, and even brought in original stars Kathryn Leigh Scott, Lara Parker, David Selby and the late Jonathan Frid to take part in the aforementioned ball sequence. Yet the fact that they only get a few seconds of significant screen time is symptomatic of a film that has all the lush production value the soap couldn’t afford, but loses sight of how to corral all its expensive ingredients into a fully satisfying story.
