Director Tim Burton brings the cult classic series "Dark Shadows" to the big screen in a film featuring an all-star cast, led by Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer and Helena Bonham Carter.

In the year 1750, Joshua and Naomi Collins, with young son Barnabas, set sail from England to start a new life in America, where they build a fishing empire in the coastal Maine town that comes to carry their name: Collinsport. Two decades pass and Barnabas (Johnny Depp) has the world at his feet. The master of Collinwood Manor, Barnabas is rich, powerful and an inveterate playboy…until he makes the grave mistake of falling in love with a beauty named Josette DuPres (Bella Heathcote) and breaking the heart of Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green). A witch in every sense of the word, Angelique dooms him to a fate worse than death—turning him into a vampire, and then burying him…alive.

Nearly two centuries later, Barnabas is inadvertently freed from his tomb and emerges into the very changed world of 1972, a stranger in an even stranger time. Returning to Collinwood Manor, he finds that his once-grand estate has fallen into ruin, and the dysfunctional remnants of the Collins family have fared little better, each harboring their own dark secrets.

Family matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Michelle Pfeiffer) is the one person Barnabas entrusts with the truth of his identity. But his rather odd and anachronistic behavior immediately raises the suspicions of the live-in psychiatrist, Dr. Julia Hoffman (Helena Bonham Carter), who has no idea what kind of problems she’s really digging up.

As Barnabas sets out to restore his family name to its former glory, one thing stands in his way: Collinsport’s leading denizen, who goes by the name Angie…and who bears a striking resemblance to a very old acquaintance of Barnabas Collins.

Also residing in Collinwood Manor are Elizabeth’s ne’er-do-well brother, Roger Collins, (Jonny Lee Miller); her rebellious teenage daughter Carolyn Stoddard (Chloë Grace Moretz); and Roger’s precocious 10-year-old son, David Collins (Gully McGrath). The longsuffering caretaker of Collinwood is Willie Loomis (Jackie Earle Haley), and new to the Collins’ employ is David’s nanny, Victoria Winters (Bella Heathcote), who is, mysteriously, the mirror image of Barnabas’ one true love, Josette.

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Watching Johnny Depp play tricks with his long-nailed, slender fingers in Tim Burton's Dark Shadows reminded me of another of the duo's gothic-fantasy collaborations, Edward Scissorhands. 

The two films are in no way co-related but it is remarkable how, in both, Depp plays a character grappling with modern-day inventions.

Plot

Barnabas Collins is an 18th century bloodsucking vampire who literally returns from beyond the grave after 190 years. But that is of little importance to his descendant and head of the Collins’s household Elizabeth (Pfeiffer).  He’s a Collins and a good man, a rare combination, she declares. The rest of the family, to hilarious effect, think him a weird, distant relative from England from where the once –prosperous family has its roots. To Barnabas, the town of Collinsport, Maine isn’t what it used to be, with the once- influential family’s legacy forgotten by the community which adopted its name for the town. The unfortunate victim of witch Angelique Brouchard (Green) whose love he did not return, the wealthy scion was reduced to the town monster after losing his parents, his lover Josette (Heathcote) and his own mortality due to her wrath.

Remembering his father’s advice about how family is real wealth, he endears himself to his offbeat descendants. These include the matron Elizabeth’s up-to-no-good brother Roger (Miller), their respective offspring the testy teen Carolyn (Moretz) and angelic David (McGrath). A consummate gentleman, not only does he refrain from sinking his fangs into his own blood but also from those trusted by them such as the live-in psychiatrist Dr Hoffman (Carter) and David’s governess Victoria Winters (Heathcote) who bears an uncanny resemblance to his lost Josette.

With the family’s centuries-old cannery business almost at its end and stately mansion Collinwood Manor almost in ruins can Barnabas restore the family’s lost glory?  Not to forger Angelique who is as well-preserved as ever and in her capacity as a business rival is driving the Collinses to the poorhouse.

Performances

The humour in the film, mostly based upon the contrasts mentioned above, relies heavily on Depp’s man-out-of-time act though that is not entirely unamusing. He proves, by picking on such roles, that he is the most interesting and experimental actor of our times.

Moretz as the angst-ridden preteen who is ignored in favour of David and Pfeiffer as the matriarch with her straight business-like manner in particular stand out in the supporting cast.  Green as Barnabas’s tormentor who still has a passion for him plays the villainess to a tee. Carter is also amusing as the inebriated doctor who has designs on the creature.

Overall

Dark Shadows is a weird film but there’s rarely a dull moment in it. The writing may have been lacking in certain areas such as the ho-hum ending but the requisite wit and good acting make it a spooktacularly humourous event.

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