Review: 'Dark Shadows'

Film: Dark Shadows
Director: Tim Burton
Cast: Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Michelle Pfeiffer, Eva Green, Bella Heathcote, Jonny Lee Miller, Chloë Moretz, Gulliver McGrath
Rating: ***

That Barnabas Collins is an 18th century bloodsucking freak who literally returns from beyond the grave after 190  years is of little import to his descendant and head of the Collins’s household Elizabeth (Pfeiffer).  He’s a Collins and a good man, a rare combination, she declares. The rest of the family, to hilarious effect, think him a weird, distant relative from England from where the once –prosperous family has its roots. To Barnabas, the town of Collinsport, Maine isn’t what it used to be, with the once- influential family’s legacy forgotten by the community which adopted its name for the town. The unfortunate victim of witch Angelique Brouchard (Green) whose love he did not return, the wealthy scion was reduced to the town monster after losing his parents, his lover Josette (Heathcote) and his own mortality due to her wrath.

Remembering his father’s advice about how family is real wealth, he endears himself to his offbeat descendants. These include the matron Elizabeth’s up-to-no-good brother Roger (Miller), their respective offspring the testy teen Carolyn (Moretz) and angelic David (McGrath). A consummate gentleman, not only does he refrain from sinking his fangs into his own blood but also from those trusted by them such as the live-in psychiatrist Dr Hoffman (Carter) and David’s governess Victoria Winters (Heathcote) who bears an uncanny resemblance to his lost Josette.

With the family’s centuries-old cannery business almost at its end and stately mansion Collinwood Manor almost in ruins can Barnabas restore the family’s lost glory?  Not to forger Angelique who is as well-preserved as ever and in her capacity as a business rival is driving the Collinses to the poorhouse.

Tim Burton returns in his adaptation of the 1960’s soap opera of the same name with his gaunt misfit protagonist, eccentric supporting characters, black humour and pervading gothic feel. He contrasts morbidity with the quirkiness of his characters, and majestic gothic vistas and campy 70’s music and iconography. 

The humour in the film, mostly based upon the contrasts mentioned above, relies heavily on Depp’s man-out-of-time act though that is not entirely unamusing.

 Besides this, a sense of surreal melodrama pervades among the supernatural goings on what with the beings dramatically confronting each other. Ghosts too,  as eerie harbingers from the great beyond too emerge occasionally; making their presence felt to the sensitive Victoria and David.

 In his eight collaboration with Burton, a heavily made up, fanged and clawed Depp with matted-down hair appears to have learned a thing or two from Martin Landau in Ed Wood.  He never fails to amuse with his archaic pronouncements and stiff-upper-lip mannerisms, apologizing to his soon to-be victims and being confounded by love. One wishes his character and its object of desire Victoria’s relationship was better played out. It is odd how she disappears from the story all together midway. 

Moretz as the angst-ridden preteen who is ignored in favour of David and Pfeiffer as the matriarch with her straight business-like manner in particular stand out in the supporting cast.  Green as Barnabas’s tormentor who still has a passion for him plays the villainess to a tee. Carter is also amusing as the inebriated doctor who has designs on the creature.

If the humor and story don’t do it for you, one can’t deny that Dark Shadows is among one of the years better-looking films with lush production and costume design. The manor with its carvings, painted walls and crystal chandeliers is undoubtedly an objet d'art.  Bruno Delbonnel’s spectacular cinematography, besides being breathtaking, is a shout out to classic horror cinema.

Dark Shadows is a weird film but there’s rarely a dull moment in it. Screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith’s writing may have been lacking in certain areas such as the ho-hum ending but the requisite wit and good acting make it a spooktacularly humourous event.