Movie review: "Dark Shadows" (VIDEO)

Movie remakes of old TV shows usually pursue one of two paths.

Producers following the first way respect the original show and aim to recapture its spirit and intent (think “The Fugitive”). Producers following the other way conspire with audiences to reassure us we’re so much smarter here in the 21st century and will ridicule the old show, especially if it has a cult following (think “Land of the Lost”).

Tim Burton’s “Dark Shadows,” with his frequent collaborator Johnny Depp as the vampire Barnabas Collins, tries to have it both ways. As is often the case when a movie can’t make up its mind, neither way works well.

Premiering in 1966, the original “Dark Shadows” (available on Netflix streaming) was an oddity among daytime soap operas, unveiling 30 minutes of gothic horror every weekday afternoon. When Barnabas Collins arrived in its second year, “Dark Shadows” forever altered how vampires would be portrayed. Played by stately Jonathan Frid, Barnabas was the first sympathetic vampire, a brooding antihero instead of villain. He soon took over the show.

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One of Frid’s biggest fans was a young Johnny Depp, who dreamed of being Barnabas Collins. When you become one of the world’s most reliable box-office stars, your dreams tend to come true, especially if your favored director also is a “Dark Shadows” buff.

Although regarded as camp today, the original soap played its melodrama straight.

Burton’s film begins in this fashion with an extended prologue set in colonial Maine.

Barnabas, heir to the Collins family fishing fortune, spurns the love of scullery maid Angelique (Eva Green, “Casino Royale”). Too bad for him, Angelique is a witch. She turns Barnabas into a vampire and rallies the townsfolk to bury him alive. “Dracula” wouldn’t be published for another 120 years, so the townsfolk probably weren’t hep to the stake-through-the-heart thing.

The story jumps to 1972 (the year after the TV show went off the air) as new nanny Victoria Winters (Bella Heathcote) arrives at Barnabas’ ancestral home, Collinwood. The modern Collins clan consists of Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Michelle Pfeiffer) and her sulky teenage daughter, Carolyn (Chloë Grace Moretz, the tragic vampire of “Let Me In”), and Elizabeth’s brother, Roger (Johnny Lee Miller), and his chipper young son, David (Gully McGrath).

Also residing in the crumbling manor are soused groundskeeper Willy Loomis (Jackie Earle Haley) whose odd facial hair suggests he should be crewing an 1860s whaler, and soused psychiatrist Julia Hoffman (Helena Bonham Carter), ostensibly there to treat David, who says he communicates with his mother’s ghost.

Shortly after this gloomy group is introduced, construction workers unearth Barnabas’ coffin and set him free. Barnabas returns to Collinwood, where he reasserts himself as patriarch and vows to restore the family honor and rebuild its financial empire. He learns the rival fishing business is run by Angelique, still alive nearly 200 years later, still seductive and still bent on destroying the Collins family, one generation at a time.

The film takes storylines that ran several years on the soap opera and squeezes them into two hours. Victoria is the spitting image of Barnabas’ true love Josette, who was killed by Angelique. Dr. Hoffman attempts to cure Barnabas’ vampirism with a series of blood transfusions. All the while, Barnabas adjusts awkwardly to a world two centuries beyond his sensibilities.

Once Barnabas is revived, “Dark Shadows” essentially becomes a comedy. Burton and screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith (author of the novel “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter”) fire off many jokes where Barnabas mistakes technology for sorcery. If you’ve seen the trailers or commercials, you’ve seen the best of these.

“Dark Shadows” also runs through a series of vampire gags reminiscent of Al Jaffee cartoons that might have appeared in Mad Magazine during the show’s heyday. Barnabas brushes his fangs even though he can’t see his reflection in the bathroom mirror – that sort of thing. Burton also cannot resist easy gags about the kitschy 1970s, targeting such fads as troll dolls, macramé and “Love Story.”

Burton mixed horror and humor to wild success early in his career, but “Dark Shadows” is no “Beetlejuice.” Now consigned to churning out blockbusters, Burton has lost his slyness and subtlety. Barnabas is a reluctant killer. Burton and Depp try to milk this trait for black comedy, once the director’s specialty. But the deaths are too violent, and the ensuing comedy is too broad. “Dark Shadows” is a film of jarring mood swings.

This is especially true of the climax, when the tale reverts to drama in time for a spectacular confrontation between Barnabas and Angelique in Collinwood’s main hall. With superbly creepy special effects (but one monster too many) the showdown is undermined by what precedes it. After making fun of itself for the previous hour, “Dark Shadows” cannot ask the audience to take it seriously for the final 15 minutes.

Many of the performances are worthy. Pfeiffer is the one supporting player not thrown when the story lurches into camp, and Green delivers the most convincing American accent I’ve ever heard from a French actor. One of Burton’s stock players, Christopher Lee, enjoys a short, funny scene where Depp works some vampire mojo on cinema’s second most popular Dracula. Frid, who died last month, also makes a cameo appearance.

Depp went too zany in recent Burton collaborations, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and – shudder – “Alice in Wonderland,” but here his mannerisms are quieter and more composed (almost conspicuously so). Barnabas Collins is a character who savors his words, and Depp channels the character’s 18th century sense of propriety into a droll performance.

Depp’s sense of humor works even when Burton’s fails. If this remake had committed itself to full-on parody, it might have defiled the spirit of the original “Dark Shadows,” but it would have better served Depp’s interpretation of Barnabas Collins. It’s all a bloody shame.

• Jeffrey Westhoff writes reviews for the Northwest Herald. Email him at sidetracks@nwherald.com.

“Dark Shadows”
2 stars
Rated PG-13 for comic horror violence, sexual content, some drug use, language and smoking
Running time: 1 hour, 53 minutes
Who’s in it: Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Helena Bonham Carter, Eva Green
What’s it about: Revived in 1972 after 200 years in the grave, vampire Barnabas Collins (Depp) tries to restore his family’s honor as he adjusts awkwardly to modern technology and behaviors.