Wonderfully offbeat film!

Sadly Over-hyped

Fresh and Exciting

Excellent but underrated film

Even John Depp can't save this one. I am assuming that you are somewhat familiar with the other previous versions. Most of the beginning is straight "historic" story-telling and it is riveting. The chain-wrapped coffin of Barnabas Collins is found in a construction site. After 200 years of imprisonment, Barnabas drains 11 victims in no time. He proceeds to Collinswood Mansion after first walking through town, seeing the club scene in 1974. He tells only a select few that he is the real thing, vampire and all. To the others he is their distant English cousin. All the familiar characters are there including Willie Loomis, who doesn't have as much to do in this version but he becomes Barnabas' servant as always. Angelique the Witch never died, and she runs the "Angel Bay" fisheries which is the more successful cannery as the Collins family is the poor second cannery and has lost it's former glory. Dr. Hoffman is along to to try and alter Barnabas (and her own) bloodwork. As always, Victoria and Josette are played by the same young girl. "Vicky" is the reincarnation of Barnabas' lost love. The first half is not too bad, but then the story gets choppy, sloppy, and uneven. Angelique and Barnabas have a steamy love scene, Alice Cooper guests at a "Happening" party which falls flat. Then all "Hell" breaks loose. The witch entombs him and little David saves him. There is a huge Witch Vs. Vampire fight-to-the-death, and eventually both the cannery and the great house burn-to-the-ground. There of course is a lot more going before this, involving werewolves, ghosts, and Barnabas arrested for the murder of Dr. Hoffman. She betrayed him so he killed her and drank her blood. Way too "campy" in the 2nd half and choppy editing, although some of that could be for "running time". The soundtrack is horrible and includes "Carpenters" Songs. Finally, they get it right at the end as Vicky takes a swan dive off the watery breakers at the cliff. She dies and the spirit of Josette is restored to life. Barnabas falls with her and is restored to human form! A very financially successful film in spite of itself!

While it had a bit of a slow start, with technical limitations being obvious and the characters not being as interesting, from the moment it switched to colour and introduced its most iconic character Barnabas Collins (unforgettably played by Jonathan Frid) the 1966 'Dark Shadows' is a classic.It is easy to see why it was so popular back in its day, and it is equally easy to see why it is remembered so fondly now. Despite its flaws (which were forgivable in a way), this reviewer spent many days and hours watching it with sheer joy, it really helping me get through many stressful and mentally straining times this year at music college (though there were many great times too, and saw a huge progression and several seemingly impossible achievements).Sadly, this 2012 film version of 'Dark Shadows' was hugely disappointing. As an adaptation of the show, it just doesn't compare and understandably can (and has been) be seen as a travesty to die-hard fans. Tim Burton and Johnny Depp apparently claim to be fans of 'Dark Shadows', but to me that wasn't obvious at all. There was more of a sense that Burton hadn't even seen the show, seeing as the tone and spirit feels completely wrong, or he thought he could improve upon it.On its own as a film, it has its good points but several major flaws that to be honest for this reviewer were more obvious. It is a shame as I am a fan of Burton's 80s and 90s stuff, especially 'Edward Scissorhands' and 'Ed Wood' which are two of my all-time favourites, but after his career low-point 'Planet of the Apes' he became hit-and-miss. While it is better than 'Planet of the Apes', along with 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' and 'Alice in Wonderland' 'Dark Shadows' is very much a lesser effort from Burton.There are good things. It does look great, with splendidly Gothic and vibrantly colourful sets, wonderful and atmospheric use of colours, effectively ghoulish make-up and appropriately kooky costumes that suited the characters very well, while it's beautifully and stylishly photographed as well. The music score is groovy, rousingly orchestrated, haunting and a long way from forgettable or generic, if not one of Danny Elfman's best or most inspired scores, with some clever song choices. There are some amusing, well-written lines in the script, loved the line about Alice Cooper and it is most successful when Barnabas is struggling to fit in, and a few of the cast acquit themselves well.Johnny Depp is no Jonathan Frid and he has given better performances (though also much worse, it is one of his better performances in any of his later collaborations with Burton), but he is clearly having a lot of fun as Barnabas without overdoing it and is one of the most involved members of the cast, he also is very charismatic. Michelle Pfeiffer is one of the most successful at injecting a genuine and faithful personality, while Eva Green is both sexy and intense. Cameos by Christopher Lee and Alice Cooper are well-utilised.Unfortunately, a number of the cast don't come off well. Jackie Earl Haley, who is very good at being menacing and sometimes low-key if he needs to be, looked bored in a role that is so much in the background that there was almost no need for him. Helena Bonham Carter overdoes it and comes over as out of place, while Chloe Grace Moretz is irritating in a negatively stereotypical role. Much of the acting is either over-compensated and bland, being able to do very little to nothing with their dull and often unrecognisable in personality characters, and while it was interesting to see Frid his appearance is far too short to leave a lasting impression. The chemistry between the characters, one of the show's biggest strengths, is barely there.'Dark Shadows' script has its moments, but these moments are too sporadic. Tonally it is very unfocused and muddled too often, it rarely seems to know whether to be eccentric comedy or full-blown melodrama. It attempts to do both (amongst others) and never completely succeeds at either, the comedy is too sporadic and can be childish and overdone and the melodrama is unmoving and overwrought. Story-wise it's a mess, it never really comes to life, has twists that come out of nowhere and are completely misplaced (especially the werewolf subplot), parts that drag endlessly and contribute very little to the plot and parts that looked alright on paper but executed in a half-baked way.As a result, the Gothic atmosphere is almost completely lost, with it only being obvious in the production values, while the sex scene choreographed to Barry White is too broad and overly-wild and the ending is overblown to ridiculous extremes. Burton's direction does well with the style is but severely lacking in the story and the substance, where there is a complete lack of heart and soul.Overall, not awful but disappoints hugely both as a standalone and especially as an adaptation of a classic show. 5/10 Bethany Cox

Fans (like me) of the original "Dark Shadows" TV series need to remember, this is not an episode of that series, or an original storyline or continuation of it. I think that's what most fans came into this looking for. It is instead (as most Burton films are) a tribute to, or more correctly a parody of, the series, and specifically a parody of the Barnabas Collins vampire storyline.Johnny Depp does the character justice for the material he is given. The actress who plays Dr. Julia Hoffman really does not: regretfully, she is no Grayson Hall and therefore doesn't bring the same air of mystery and near-foreboding to the part. Part of that may be due to the scripting though, and the comedic air which is brought to the film in scenes where it seems a bit out of place (for example, when Barnabas attacks a group of teenagers because he needs to feed). The actress who played Angelique also suffers from the same shortcomings (Lara Parker was much better in the role).The film is appropriately timed at the ending up at Widow's Hill, and in the beginning, but throughout suffers from uneven pacing and seemingly a bit confused direction. Word to all DS fans: Relax, it's a parody, have a bit of fun with it on a Friday night over your favorite beverage or two. Don't expect serious drama and you'll enjoy it fine.

Dark shadows is just absolutely terrible, it is muddled, BORING, poorly acted to be honest, and a complete waste of talent. Tim Burton is obviously a very talented actor, so I don't know what kinda whacked up stuff he was on when he did this movie, but even if he was that's still no excuse for delivering this trash to us. I'm not a humongous Depp fan, but he has been good in previous films, he was NOT in this one, he is annoying and way too over the top here. This film is not funny, when it tries to get out a laugh, it falls flat every time. Helena carter is lazy and lackluster here too. And I usually like Michelle Pfeiffer, but come on Michelle, you deserve better material than this! The events are boring and the plot i.e. uninteresting and the script is very lazy and phoned in. 1/10.