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Angelique (Eva Green) consigns Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp) back to the grave in Tim Burton’s DARK SHADOWS.


the picture was “Appearances Are Everything.”) When all is said and done, the track succeeds at giv- ing us more reasons to like an already impressive piece of work. It also deserves the Hitchcockian accolade of being a piece of cake—not just well-iced, but rewardingly layered.


DARK SHADOWS


2012, Warner, 112m 50s, $19.94 (DVD), $24.98 (BD) By Tim Lucas


Tim Burton’s DARK SHAD-


OWS, based on the 1966-71 ABC-TV daytime serial conceived and produced by Dan Curtis, of- fers immediate promise of be- coming possibly the greatest Gothic horror romance ever filmed. It retracts that promise within twelve minutes, but they are perhaps the finest twelve minutes of Burton’s career. Composer Danny Elfman teases viewers familiar with the series from the first, adding wil- lowy flute trills, treated with


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reverb, under the Warner Bros. shield logo, immediately evoking the classic television cues of Rob- ert Cobert. A pre-credits se- quence narrated by Johnny Depp takes us back to Liverpool 1760, where we see the young Barnabas Collins, favored son of the prosperous Collins family, boarding a ship setting sail for America (a ship whose figure- head carries a little eureka for anyone viewing the film a second time) and casting a longing backward glance to Angelique, a servant girl preparing to sail elsewhere on board, who is al- ready in love with him and is rep- rimanded by her mother for aspiring beyond her station in life. In the new world state of Maine, the Collinses found a town, Collinsport, build a seafood can- nery to employ the local families, and erect an imposing castle dwelling cristened Collinwood. Full grown by the time the house is completed, Angelique (Eva Green) succeeds in seducing Barnabas (Depp), who admits he


does not love her. having his eye instead on pretty Josette Dupres (Bella Heathcote), the daughter of another wealthy family. What Barnabas could not foresee is that Angelique is a witch who enacts her revenge against his betrayal by having a gargoyle adorning Collinwood topple onto both his parents, killing them. When this tragedy only serves to bring Barnabas and Josette closer together, a further spell is cast that compels Josette to leap to her death from Widow’s Hill onto the sea-washed rocks be- low. In his devotion, Barnabas follows her to his own death but awakens as an outraged, star- crossed vampire, doomed by Angelique to an eternity of con- sidering the error of his ways while chained inside a well-bur- ied coffin. In modern day, a young woman named Maggie Evans (Heathcote), institution- alized as a child by parents frightened by her penchant for communicating with ghosts, boards a train to Collinsport,


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