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Perhaps this is yet another movie about vampires and the wicked, about family and good feelings, about impossible love and its curses, about a mix of all this and much more. One might say it's a Tim Burton film: this is the most fitting description.
In the end, it is a vampire-ized version of that poetic, melancholic, and splendid story of "Edward Scissorhands": Depp doesn't even seem to have aged!
It's the story of a family cursed by a witch in love and deceived by a young 18th-century playboy, who, upon awakening 200 years later, struggles quite a bit to find his bearings: his only compass is the tenacious love for his family, or at least for what remains of his strange descendants.
Burton has his favorite actors and doesn't hesitate to call them back whenever they are needed to embody his ideas: a splendid exception is Michelle Pfeiffer whom we haven't seen since Catwoman in 1992's Batman Returns.
Setting and dark-gothic scenography, photography, special effects (not too many, but well-chosen) and cast perfectly integrated into the story, which ends exactly as it begins... It's not possible to explain much more, as one risks being accused of spoilers.
If I had to define Burton's latest work, I would reuse the term "a mix of genres," but with a dose of romance and sentimentality that we probably haven't seen in a while.
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Other reviews
By Bloody Francy
The protagonist, Barnabas, is decidedly charming and also decidedly grotesque: it’s hard not to chuckle just looking at him, so out of time and place.
Tim Burton once again strikes with his 'dark shadows.' Every family has its demons.
By Mely
Burton has managed to harness this growing interest in Gothic creatures by creating a film that has little to do with the recent vampire films and TV series.
The film has it all: irony, love, fear, revenge, sensuality, romance, jealousy, all themes that make Dark Shadows more than a teen movie, more than a vampire film.
