Dark Shadows

There is a popular belief that Hollywood is running out of original ideas. With all of the remakes and movies made about toys, you can almost see where that thought is coming from. For the past twenty two years Jonny Depp and Tim Burton have made   movies together, some good like “Edward Scissorhands” and some bad like “Sleepy Hollow”. When it comes to Burton, he has not found a movie in the past few years that he won’t remake or reshape in his vision, so here we go again.

        “Dark Shadows” is Burton and Depp’s eighth film together and they do their best to prove that you don’t always get better just because you spend time together. Based on the supernatural soap opera that ran from 1966-71, it is the story of a vampire and the curse he and his family suffer. Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp) is cursed to be a vampire because he refuses the advances of Angelique (Eva Green). After he parents and the love of his life are killed, Barnabas is buried to suffer a life in solitude. In the year 1972, Barnabas is freed and returns to his home to bring his family back to its greatness. Once back home, Barnabas finds that Angelique is still alive and making sure that the Collins family is still suffering. Will Barnabas bring the Collins family back to the top? Or will Angelique keep getting her way?

  “Dark Shadows” attempts to be two things, a dark drama and a typical “fish out of water” comedy, unfortunately it gets neither one   them right. There is something about Tim Burton directing Johnny Depp in makeup that just does not work. There is also a total waste of talent, with Michelle Pfeiffer, Chloe Grace Moretz, and Jackie Earle Haley doing as little acting as possible. The screenplay was written by Seth Grahame-Smith who wrote the novel and film version of “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Killer”. One can only hope he gets better with his next film. Both Depp and Burton loved the original series and have wanted to make it a movie for a long time. I just wish they had kept it a dream project and not turned it into a nightmare to watch. I would like to ask Burton and Depp to take a break from each other and not remake anymore classic tales in their images. It would be good for both of them and above all it would be good for us movie goers, who might be getting tired of below average storytelling from these two.

 Brian Taylor