Movie review: ‘Dark Shadows’

JOHNNY DEPP as Barnabas Collins in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Village Roadshow Pictures’ gothic comedy “DARK SHADOWS,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release.

From Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman. 3 of 4 stars.

Movie review: ‘Dark Shadows’
Frequent collaborators Tim Burton and Johnny Depp give the 1960s-‘70s supernatural soap opera a big-budget movie adaptation spiked with their signature oddball humor.

Go back and watch a few episodes of the sprawling supernatural soap opera “Dark Shadows,” and it’s hard to imagine a more fitting moviemaking team than Tim Burton and Johnny Depp to give the TV cult favorite a big-budget cinematic remake.

With their gothic sensibilities, eccentric humor and obvious affection for the source material, the frequent collaborators bring much more fun and passion to their eighth project than they did to their seventh, 2010’s lackluster reimaging of “Alice in Wonderful,” a colorful but surprisingly joyless box-office blockbuster that undoubtedly helped “Dark Shadows” get the green light.

The long-running TV series — more than 1,200 episodes aired on daytime television from 1966-71 — has mostly been forgotten in the mainstream collective consciousness, but its diehard devotees shouldn’t despair based on the movie’s trailers, which highlight the Burton-Depp trademark oddball hilarity and little else. Burton and screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith (who wrote the book and upcoming movie “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter”) create a reasonable facsimile of the show’s ever-changing tone, successfully shifting from suspense and melodrama to horror and the newly added elements of fish-out-of-water humor over the course of the film.

The movie begins with a flashback to 1750, as a wealthy couple from England and their young son Barnabas immigrate to the New World and build a fishing empire in the scenic coastal Maine town that eventually takes their name and becomes known as Collinsport.

Barnabas Collins (Depp) grows up into the town lothario, which gets him ensnared in a love triangle between his ethereal beloved Josette (Bella Heathcote) and sultry servant girl Angelique (Eva Green). Barnabas chooses Josette over Angelique without knowing that the latter is literally a hateful witch. Angelique takes an “if I can’t have him no one can” attitude to the news, cruelly transforming Barnabas into a vampire, casting a deadly spell on Josette and inciting the town to bury Barnabas alive in a chain-wrapped steel coffin.