Dark Shadows
2012  PG-13  COMEDY  1h 53min
CAST— Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Helena Bonham Carter, Eva Green, Jackie Earle Haley, Jonny Lee Miller, Chloë Grace Moretz, Bella Heathcote
MUSIC— Danny Elfman  DIRECTOR— Tim Burton  BASED ON— Characters appearing on Dark Shadows (television)

     Dark, indeed. Johnny Depp adds another brick to his wall of weird, this time delivering a subpar, barely beating comedic chiller. Taking its cue (and that’s about it) from the fondly remembered cult classic soap opera of the 1970s, the film stars Depp as the tormented vampire Barnabas Collins, recently awakened from a slumber of nearly two hundred years. He finds his beloved New England township crawling with hippies, VW Buses, and other assorted oddities that were the backbone of America’s counterculture. He is dismayed to discover that his sprawling family manor is but a shell of its former self, the remnants of his family tree living off the last of the family’s largess, running a fishing business that is slowly being consumed by their competitor, a booming fishery run by none other than the witch who forever cursed Collins long ago. Collins feels the need to return his family to their former glory, defeat the evil cannery queen and reunite with his lost love. Delivered with tongue-in-cheek the film pulls out all the stops in the hopes of entertaining but falls short by degrees, both comedically and horrifically. Recommended only for those both curious and bored, not for lovers of the original series.
OUR RATING— **