"Dark Shadows": Burton and Depp Aren't at Their Best

A A A Comments (0) By Nick Pinkerton Wednesday, May 9 2012
Even when we don’t expect anything, Tim Burton movies are somehow disappointing.
Even when we don’t expect anything, Tim Burton movies are somehow disappointing.

Details

Rated PG-13. Opens Friday at San Francisco theaters.

Related Content

More About

Dark Shadows slips the Tim Burton treatment to the supernaturally themed daily daytime soap of the same name, which aired on ABC from 1966 to 1971. Burton standby Johnny Depp fills the central role of vampire Barnabas Collins in this film version, which begins with a prologue that reveals the origin of the Collins curse. Leaving Liverpool, a still-mortal Barnabas arrives with his parents in colonial Maine, where they build a commercial empire and establish the family seat, Collinwood Mansion. As a young man, Barnabas is torn between two loves — lowly servant Angelique (Eva Green), and hypergamous fiancée Josette (Bella Heathcote) — and winds up with neither, for the spurned Angelique practices black magic, hexing Josette to death and Barnabas to endless suffering as a vampire, imprisoned in a chained-up coffin and buried (eternally) alive. The bulk of Dark Shadows, however, takes place in 1972, after Barnabas has been accidentally exhumed, to resume the head of his dysfunctional descendants. More than its gothic tropes, Burton's Dark Shadows is committed to fish-out-of-water material — culture-clash humor that rummages through the collective thrift-store memory of the '70s and relies on slow-pitch, wasn't-the-past-dumb humor. Amid all this is an unusually dandy bit of dress up from Depp, weaving his elongated Nosferatu fingers through the air, recalling 1994's Ed Wood. That movie is still by far Depp and Burton's best collaboration, exhibiting the balance of tone, between campy parody and zealous fantasy, that's missing in Dark Shadows, which is less a resurrection than a clumsy desecration.

Related Content

Check out this week's featured ad for Restaurants
More Ads >>
 
My Voice Nation Help
1 comments
  Livefyre
Sort: Newest | Oldest
 
VOICE Daily Deals

Now Showing

Find capsule reviews, showtimes & tickets for all films in town.

Powered By VOICE Places

Slideshows

Join My Voice Nation for free stuff, film info & more!

Now Trending

Box Office

  1. Man of Steel, 116.6 mil, 128.7 mil
  2. This Is The End, 20.7 mil, 33.0 mil
  3. Now You See Me, 11.0 mil, 80.7 mil
  4. Fast & Furious 6, 9.6 mil, 219.7 mil
  5. The Purge, 8.3 mil, 52.0 mil
  6. The Internship, 7.1 mil, 31.1 mil
  7. Epic, 6.3 mil, 95.7 mil
  8. Star Trek Into Darkness, 6.3 mil, 211.1 mil
  9. After Earth, 4.1 mil, 54.5 mil
  10. Iron Man 3, 3.0 mil, 399.7 mil
Movie Title, Weekly Earnings, Total Earnings

Movie Trailers

View all movie trailers >>
More News Stories >
©2013 SF Weekly, LP, All rights reserved.
Browse Voice Nation
  • Voice Places San Francisco / Bay Area

    Voice Places

    Find everything you're looking for in your city

  • Happy Hour App

    Happy Hour App

    Find the best happy hour deals in your city

  • Daily Deals

    Daily Deals

    Get today's exclusive deals at savings of anywhere from 50-90%

  • Best Of

    Best Of...

    Check out the hottest list of places and things to do around your city