Film Review | Dark Shadows

Long has esteemed character actor Johnny Depp been large-haired filmmaker Tim Burton’s muse for the director’s brooding visions, with many of those team-ups little more than tinkering with already established characters. Predictably, Burton and Depp’s latest outing, the horror-comedy Dark Shadows (2012) – their eighth collaboration together – doesn’t even try to buck that trend.

Based on the cult US TV show of the same name, the film sees 18th century lothario Barnabas Collins (Depp) turned into a vampire and buried alive after breaking the heart of evil witch Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green). Nearly two centuries later, Barnabas is accidentally freed from his tomb and, returning to his hometown of Collinwood, finds the dysfunctional remnants of the Collins family in disarray. Intent on restoring his family’s fishing business to its former glory, he is met with opposition in the form of the spurned witch.

Read the rest of this review on CineVue here.