More Burton Reimaginings.

Tim Burton returned to the director’s chair to create another film with Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter in it. This one was based on an old American soap style sit-com from the 1960s called Dark Shadows. At least I think it’s a comedy...

I’m not really sure what to think about this movie. First of all I don’t really know what this movie is… Is it a comedy? It’s based on a comedy, but this really doesn’t feel like one. So maybe it’s a drama? It’s too light-hearted to be that either. Horror? Well there are some horror elements to it but calling this a horror movie would be like calling Jurassic Park a comedy because John Hammond really hates Ian Malcolm…

So I’ve had to settle with the genre: movie.

Dark Shadows is pretty mediocre stuff really. It’s all about a man who is cursed as a vampire by a witch, then imprisoned underground for centuries before being dug up and released by some unaware construction workers. Johnny Depp is decent as the vampire of the town but I’m clutching at straws to say it was vintage Depp and Eva Green plays the witch in a decent but again nothing fantastic performance.

I don’t know what it is about Tim Burton, I generally like his movies but I’m slowly losing faith. His more recent movies, with the exception of Sweeney Todd are nothing short of poor. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Alice in Wonderland and now Dark Shadows. Saying that though, this is much better than those two, but still way off Sweeney Todd.


Maybe I’m just fed up of the stereotypical Burton style; I suppose it’s almost clichéd nowadays to hear about a reimagining of something that already exists by Tim Burton. I much preferred the original stuff from him. He doesn’t strike me as the kind of director who’s run out of ideas so I don’t think that’s the reason why he keeps reimagining things…

Perhaps I’m missing something, Dark Shadows was an American TV show, so maybe this movie can only be appreciated by Americans. I personally don’t get why it even exists. It adds nothing to the movie industry, it’s just there.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a terrible movie but I don’t really see a point to it being made. If this didn’t have Johnny Depp in it, then it would have bombed even more than it did. That’s pretty much the only reason I went to see it.

The only positive thing I can say though is that at least the vampire in this movie is an actual vampire and not one of those sparkly ones you find in almost every vampire adaptation since 2008.

Final Verdict: 2 Stars. This is a movie, nothing more.