Dark Shadows (2012)

Tim Burton, a very hit or miss director, I believe I've mentioned this. Previous Burton adaptations of existing properties like the Planet of the Apes or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, well, they failed, so my expectations for Dark Shadows where modest ones. I'm pleased to say that Dark Shadows was a success, one of Burton's hits, but I think it benefited a lot from being less ambitious then the other adaptive efforts I mentioned earlier. First off Dark Shadows, a campy, cult-classic soap opera that aired on American television from 1966-1971, is a lesser known property to begin with. Secondly, it just naturally suits Burton's sensibility, creepy old mansion, eccentric relatives, vampires. Or rather one vampire, Johnny Depp as Baranbas Collins, the glue that holds the film together, a great deadpan preformance. Depp is perfect as an 18th Century aristocrat who has been turned into a vampire and held captive in a chained casket for 196 years. Freed from his prison by construction workers building a McDonald's in 1972, Barnabas, a family oriented man, immediately sets out in search of living kin. He finds them, a total of 4, residing in the family's decaying Maine estate, he also finds that the romantically obsessive witch (Eva Green) whom he'd spurned, and who turned him into a vampire two centuries ago, is alive and well and running the Collins families chief rival in the fishing industry.

Baranbas seeks to turn his families fortunes around, he manages to convince family matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Michelle Pfeiffer) of his true identity, and she passes him off as visiting distant relative from England, one with a skin condition. Barnabas is friendly with the rest of the family, and falls in love with their new nanny (Bella Heathcote) who looks just like the women that Baranbas loved in the past. The witch Angelique Bouchard finds that she has missed Baranbas and offers to resend the curse that has now plagued his family for generations, if he will consent to be her lover, but Barnabas refuses, hence much of the story.

I always enjoy seeing the 1970's portrayed in film, in fact I thinks it probably my favorite decade to look at, and its displayed here in all its gaudy glory and without feeling too overdone. I suspect Burton really enjoyed lacing the soundtrack with early 70's tunes, I loved the use of Karen Carpenter, I tolerated the use of  Alice Cooper. The cast is good and diverse, Jackie Earle Haley, Jonny Lee Miller, Chloe Grace Mortez, and of course Helena Bonham Carter. The film plays lose and feels free, there are a surprising number of odd plot threads introduced late in the movie, but it works because Dark Shadows was a soap opera, the fact that much of it is never satisfactorily explained or resolved seems appropriate. A fun, low impact film, that satisfies, even if it doesn't have many memorable moments. ***