“DARK SHADOWS”

One of the best things about “Dark Shadows”, the retro film version of the 1960s Gothic soap, is that you don’t even have to remember the TV show to enjoy it. (Of course, the opening sequence — in which the “all you need to know” backstory is dispensed with in about ten minutes flat — certainly helps.)
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This time, brooding bloodsucker Barnabas Collins is played by Johnny Depp. Does Depp have it written into every contract that he won’t accept a role unless it requires bucketfuls of makeup? No matter; Depp is excellent, chewing the oft-opulent scenery even as he keeps himself, and his character, under tight restraint. (Somehow, he manages to overact AND underact at the same time.  Hm — there’s a technique they don’t teach at the Actor’s Studio.) But that hold-something-back style isn’t just a result of Depp’s instinctive approach; it’s woven into the very fabric of the role. Barnabas is, after all, old-school European (centuries old, to be exact); he comports himself with a certain dignity, and speaks with a stilted eloquence, that make him even more of a fish-out-of-water in 1970s America (when the film is set) than if he had merely been a 20th century vampire in, let’s say, one of the “Twilight” flicks. “People don’t talk like that anymore”, someone points out to him. Well — they don’t walk, or dress, or act like that either.
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The rest of the cast is fine (particularly Helena Bonham Carter as the duplicitous  Dr. Hoffman, abandoning her usual British accent for an American one), but Barnabas needed a foil, an arch-enemy who could match him snarl for snarl, and Eva Green, as the seething, smoldering Angelique fits the bill perfectly. It was Angelique, a witch, who turned him into a vampire in the first place, and now that he’s back after nearly two hundred years in a coffin — and, even worse, wants to quash Angelique’s cannery business and return the Collins family fortune to the heady days of yore — she’s ready for battle. If Depp chews the scenery quietly, relishing every word like a mouth-watering morsel of the most exquisitely prepared food, Green eats it up and — well, spits it out. She is the great Depp’s equal in every way.
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I didn’t think the movie was quite as funny as advertised; except for the occasional laugh-out-loud joke, or sight gag, or 70s-era pop culture reference (keep an eye out for Barnabas smoking weed with some zonked-out hippies), the whole thing seemed awfully … serious.
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Truth is, though, from its gorgeous shots of the family estate (both inside and out), to its stormy, cliffside vistas and sun-drenched views of charming Collinsport, the quaint little fishing village that bears the family name, the movie looks — in a word — superb.
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A brief moment at the end — blink, and you’ll miss it — indicates that Barnabas’ tragic tale, and the story of his family, might not be over yet. Dare we think that somewhere down the line there might be a “Dark Shadows II”?
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FILM REVIEW by Stuart R. Brynien