Dark Shadows Movie Review 260

Dark Shadows is a 2012 horror/comedy movie based on the 1960's television soap of the same name. It is directed by Tim Burton and stars Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Eva Green and Helena Bonham Carter.

In the town of Collinsport in Maine in the 1700's, the Collins family have a shipping business which is very successful and the town is named after them. One of them, Barnabas Collins(Depp) has a fling with the maid, Angelique Bouchard(Green) but she falls in love with him. She is a witch. He doesn't feel the same way and he rejects her. In revenge, she causes the death of his parents and his true love, Josette(Bella Heathcote) by causing her to jump off of a cliff . Angelique turns Barnabas into a vampire and places a curse on his family. She gets the locals to grab him and chain him in a coffin and bury him.

Cut to 1972 and a girl called Victoria Winters(Heathcote) is coming to Collinsport to become a governess to one of the Collins family. She meets the matriarch, Elizabeth(Pfeiffer), her brother Roger(Jonny Lee Miller), her daughter Carolyn(Chloe Grace Moretz), the psychiatrist Dr.Julia Hoffman(Carter), Roger's son, David(Gulliver McGrath) and the caretaker of the house,Willie(Jackie Earle Haley). They seem a bit strange. Barnabas finds himself set free when a group of construction workers dig him up on the site. He gets free and enjoys a nice meal of them! He then makes his way to the house to see what has happened while he has been away. He looks around and sees that things are very different now. Everything has changed. He meets Willie when he reaches the house and makes him his servant. Elizabeth meets him and thinks that he is a conman. He assures her that he isn't and leads her to an underground passage where there is so much wealth hidden. They agree to share it between them.

He meets the others in the family and they think that his dress and manner are very weird. He sets eyes on Vicki who looks exactly like his dead fiancee, Josette. Meanwhile, Angelique(Green) is running a hugely successful company which is bankrupting the Collins' business. She wants them to be broke. She owns most of the town now and she will not stop until everything is hers. She learns that Barnabas is back and she is determined to ruin him again. The Collins family set up their business once again and they start becoming successful much to the anger of witch Angelique. She seduces Barnabas and they have sex. She wants to be his partner and his lover but he rejects her. She tells him that she will destroy him and his family. Dr. Hoffman finds out that he is a vampire and she sets up a transfusion so she can try and purify his blood so he can be human again.

Barnabas has a party and Alice Cooper shows up. He and Vicki get closer, but Angelique sees them and she swears revenge. Barnabas finds out that Dr. Hoffman was transferring his blood into her body and trying to be a vampire. He kills her and throws her in the water. Everyone in the family realises that he is a vampire. Angelique threatens him and tells him if he doesn't be her lover, she will put him back into the coffin for another two hundred years. He refuses and she puts him back into the coffin and leaves him. David rescues him and they go back to the house. Angelique tells the townsfolk that Barnabas killed the doctor and others and they come for him. His family come to his defence and try to stop her. There is a huge fight and she wrecks the house. It turns out that she killed David's mother and he calls her from the dead and she injures Angelique.Angelique knows the game is up. She pulls out her heart and gives it to Barnabas and dies. He has to save Vicki who is under a wicked spell by Angelique. She is close to walking off of the same cliff where Josette died. He turns her into a vampire so they can be together forever. Meanwhile, Dr Hoffman is awake underwater and she is a vampire....

This was an entertaining movie. It didn't know if it was a comedy or a horror which was quite confusing and compared to the series, it probably wouldn't stand up. As a stand alone movie, it was good fun and Depp was very good in the lead role. I am giving it a 6/10.