where she has always felt drawn and where the hazy, luminous ghost of Josette, a past incarna- tion, has indicated she should work as a governess. En route, she adopts the new name of Victoria Winters, a precaution against her recognition as some- one with a history of alleged men- tal illness. Hitching a ride in a van of hippies on her road to destiny, she improvises an explanation when she’s asked why she’s go- ing to Collinsport: to see “an old friend.”
This storyline, scripted by Seth Grahame-Smith (ABRAHAM LIN- COLN VAMPIRE HUNTER) from a story by Burton’s ongoing col- league John August (BIG FISH, THE CORPSE BRIDE, CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FAC- TORY, FRANKENWEENIE), is a splendid compression and en- richment of the story originally conceived by Curtis and fleshed- out for television by Art Wallace and various staff writers, and it is the story this entire film should have told. Liverpool may seem an odd choice for a wealthy family to come from nowadays, but it was a slave trading capitol in the 18th century, a place where many fortunes were made. (If only the film’s length had permitted the story to trace the Collins family curse back to the role they played in victimizing Africa.) A conspicu- ous innovation has Barnabas and Angelique tied to a dark fate from childhood (in the series, they met as young adults in Martinique, a plausible port for a slave ship, where Angelique found her way to witchcraft through voodoo), which plays beautifully into the new story’s emphases on reincarnation and past life connections, two sub- jects that the original series was in- strumental in making culturally popular in the America of the late 1960s. Likewise, Barnabas was originally made a vampire under different circumstances: he was
bitten somewhat later, in 1795, by a demonic bat summoned by Angelique as she perished from his vengefully fired musket—but the new telling serves to compress time and maximize the power of the story’s thwarted love. Unfortunately, this story of reincarnated love—whose high- flown romanticism segues mag- nificently to modern day on the wings of The Moody Blues’ “Nights In White Satin,” like a cry of “I love you” that carries over centuries—is not the story that Tim Burton’s DARK SHADOWS tells (or was allowed by its pro- ducers to tell). Instead, the movie dive-bombs into another of Burton’s fish-out-of-water com- edies, thematically very pro-fam- ily, but with the usual generous helpings of vitriol set aside for parents who are too closed- minded to coddle their weird children’s eccentricities. When Barnabas Collins is released from his buried coffin by a 1972 exca- vation team, all 10 of them sucked dry in perhaps twice as many seconds (“You cannot pos- sibly imagine how thirsty I am!”), he is met at Collinwood by his descendant Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Michelle Pfeiffer, han- dling as well as possible a negli- gible role), who greets him with dialogue that seems in hind- sight possibly written by a screenwriter or director whose best ideas were shot down: “Welcome to Collinwood... you’ll have to imagine us on a better day.” Indeed.
One of the best reasons to keep watching, apart from some pleasingly overblown art direction and the plush cinematography of Bruno Delbonnel (AMÉLIE), is Johnny Depp himself, who has learned from working with the likes of Vincent Price and Chris- topher Lee how to deliver a pleas- ing horror characterization in the classic mold, one dependent on
stance, gesture and vocal inflec- tion. Burton has redesigned Barnabas Collins as a composite of Cesare from THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI, Count Orlock from NOSFERATU, Bela Lugosi’s Count in DRACULA (Barnabas adopts his tarantula-like finger movements to command the weaker of will), and Vincent Price’s Verden Fell from THE TOMB OF LIGEIA, allergic to sun- light and wearing side-blindered sunspectacles out of doors. The trademark batwing fringe bangs worn by actor Jonathan Frid on the television serial are given some exaggeration.
The main thrust of the story, apart from Barnabas’ arrival and his reenrichment of his derelict family (with treasures stashed away in secret compartments that only he knows), is not his fated encounter with “Victoria Winters,” whom he recognizes as his lost Josette immediately, but with Angelique Bouchard, whose vendetta against the Collinses has led her to drive their can- nery business to the brink of bankruptcy with her own com- peting company, Angelbay Sea- food (!). When Angelique learns of Barnabas’ escape, there’s none of the expected cat-and- mouse; she goes directly to Collinwood to confront him—and in the most resounding of the film’s many mistakes, trivializes all the loss which Barnabas has suffered by having him kiss, fondle and eventually have highly athletic, room-smashing sex with the witch responsible for all this tragedy and more. The death of his parents. The suicide of his beloved. His living entombment for nearly 200 years. The ruin of his family. The destruction of their factory. Our noble undead hero cashes it all in for some Wonderbra cleavage that “hasn’t aged a day.” Additionally, in exchange for an offhand compliment, he receives
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