The film had a limited release on May 10, 2012,[5] and was officially released the following day in North America.[6] It performed poorly at the United States box office, but did well in foreign markets. Reviews for the film were mixed; critics praised its visual style and consistent humor, but felt it lacked a focused or substantial plot and developed characters.[7]
Plot
In 1760, a young Barnabas Collins and his wealthy Collins family moved from Liverpool to Maine, where they established the town of Collinsport and constructed the Collinwood Mansion. Fifteen years later, Barnabas is engaged to Josette while having an affair with Angelique, who is secretly a witch, but he refuses any further advances.
Enraged, Angelique murders his parents using magic and curses Barnabas. She then casts a spell on Josette, making her jump to her death from the cliff called Widows Hill. Distraught, Barnabas attempts to fall to his death but fails because Angelique has cursed him into a vampire. She turns the town against him, and he is buried alive.
In 1972, Maggie Evans, under the aliasVictoria Winters, is hired as governess for the Collins family consisting of the Collins matriarch Elizabeth; her teenage daughter Carolyn; Elizabeth's brother: Roger, and his young son David, who believes he is being visited by his late mother's ghost; and a live-in alcoholic psychiatrist, Dr. Julia Hoffman. Meanwhile, a construction crew unwittingly frees Barnabas from his tomb before he kills them.
At Collinwood, Barnabas hypnotizes the caretaker Willie, and reveals to Elizabeth that the family curse is true. He asks to rejoin the family and shows her the manor's secret passages and hidden treasure. Meanwhile, Angelique is running a rival cannery called Angel Bay Seafood. Once discovering that Barnabas has escaped, she goes to Collinwood to confront him, reminding him of her powers and popularity within the town before she leaves.
While adjusting to modern life and falling for Victoria, Barnabas uses his powers and the family treasure to restore the Collinwood family business. Dr. Hoffman learns of his true nature while he is under hypnosis and offers to try to turn him mortal by removing his corrupted blood and giving him transfusions of human blood. Angelique arranges another meeting with Barnabas. She begs him to love her back, but he refuses, so she vows to destroy his family and Victoria.
Barnabas hosts a "happening" at Collinwood for the entire town. He talks with Victoria, who reveals she has been seeing Josette's ghost her whole life. Her parents committed her to an asylum for it. However, she eventually escaped, and Josette directed her to Collinwood. Determined to be human again, Barnabas goes to Dr. Hoffman's office, where he discovers that she deceived him to turn herself into a vampire and avoid death from old age. Barnabas kills her, and he and Willie dump her body at sea.
After catching Roger attempting to break into the secret passage that leads to the hidden fortune, Barnabas confronts him, offering him a choice: become a better father or leave Collinwood with financial gain; Roger chooses the latter. Heartbroken, David is nearly struck by a falling disco ball, but Barnabas saves him before catching on fire in the daylight, revealing himself as a vampire to the whole family and Victoria.
Believing they will never accept him, Barnabas meets with Angelique, who goads him into confessing to his murders and demands he join her as her paramour. He refuses, so she again traps him in a coffin. Angelique destroys the Collins' cannery and, with a recording of Barnabas' confession, rallies the town to storm Collinwood Manor.
David frees Barnabas, who confronts Angelique at Collinwood. They battle, and the townspeople see that she is a witch. Carolyn, who is revealed to be a werewolf, joins the fight, and Angelique uses her enchantments to subdue them, damage the house and start fires.
Angelique admits she was responsible for the werewolf that bit Carolyn as an infant and for the death of David's mother. Her ghost appears and incapacitates the witch, and the family escapes the burning manor. Angelique offers Barnabas her heart, but he refuses; she then crumbles into dust.
Barnabas races to Widow's Hill and finds Victoria, who says she has to be a vampire if they are to be together. When he refuses, she falls off the cliff. Barnabas leaps after her, biting her neck. Now a vampire, she awakens as Josette, with his curse lifted. Meanwhile, Dr. Hoffman, bound and on the sea floor, is resurrected by Barnabas’ blood and becomes a vampire.
Eva Green as Angelique "Angie" Bouchard, a vengeful witch who plots a vendetta against Barnabas and his family. She is still alive in the 20th century, having posed as five successive generations of women who own a seafood business called Angel Bay, which has outcompeted the Collins family business.[8] Her face and body begin to crack during the latter part of the film, resembling a porcelain doll.
Bella Heathcote as Victoria Winters / Josette du Pres. Heathcote plays both Josette, Barnabas' 18th-century love, and Victoria, David's governess and Barnabas' 20th-century love-interest.[8] In the end of the film she becomes Josette and a vampiress when Barnabas bites her on the neck as they fall off the cliff. Victoria and Maggie Evans' roles from the original series were combined for the film, and, in her first scene in the movie, Maggie adopts the alias of "Victoria Winters", inspired by a poster on the train to Collinsport advertising winter sports in Victoria, British Columbia.
Helena Bonham Carter as Dr. Julia Hoffman, the family's vain and often inebriated live-in psychiatrist, who was hired to treat David's trauma over his mother's death.[8]
In July 2007, Warner Bros. acquired film rights for the gothic soap opera Dark Shadows from the estate of its creator, Dan Curtis. Johnny Depp had a childhood obsession with Dark Shadows, calling it a "dream" to portray Barnabas Collins, and ended up persuading Tim Burton to direct.[19] The project's development was delayed by the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike. After the strike was resolved, Burton was attached to direct the film.[20]
By 2009, screenwriter John August was writing a screenplay for Dark Shadows.[21] In 2010, author and screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith replaced August,[22] but, on the finished film, August did receive story credit with Smith for his contributions to the film.
Filming began in May 2011. Production took place entirely in England, at both Pinewood Studios and on location.[8] Depp attempted to emulate the "rigidity" and "elegance" of Jonathan Frid's original portrayal, but also drew inspiration from Max Schreck's performance in Nosferatu.[23]
The film was scored by long-time Burton collaborator Danny Elfman. An album featuring 21 tracks of compositions from the film by Elfman was released on May 8, 2012.[24]
Dark Shadows: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack was released on May 8, 2012, as a download[25] and on various dates as a CD, such as on May 22 as an import in the United States[26] and on May 25 in Australia.[27] It features 11 songs, among them two score pieces by Danny Elfman and a recitation by Depp as Barnabas of several lines from "The Joker" by Steve Miller Band. Songs not featured on the soundtrack that are in the film include "Superfly" by Curtis Mayfield, "Crocodile Rock" by Elton John, "Paranoid" by Black Sabbath and "Monster" by Skillet.
Track listing
Included next to each track is the year of the song's original release, excluding the score pieces.
The film grossed $79.7 million in the United States and Canada, and $165.8 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $245.5 million.[1]
For a Burton film, Dark Shadows achieved below-average domestic box office takings,[28] with many commentators attributing that to the domination of The Avengers.[29] It made $29.7 million in its first weekend, then $12.8 million in its second.[30]
Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, Dark Shadows holds an approval rating of 35% based on 263 reviews, with an average rating of 5.30/10; the site's critical consensus reads: "The visuals are top notch but Tim Burton never finds a consistent rhythm, mixing campy jokes and gothic spookiness with less success than other Johnny Depp collaborations."[7] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 55 out of 100, based on 42 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[31] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale.[32]
Some critics felt the film lacked a focused or consistent plot or genre (as either horror, comedy or drama),[33] pointing to problems with Grahame-Smith's script, and that some jokes fell flat.[34] Some claimed that Burton and Depp's collaborations had become tired.[35][36][37] Many of these same critics, however, noted that this film's visual style was impressive.[38][39][40]
Positive reviewers, on the other hand, opined that the film successfully translated the mood of the soap opera[41] and that its '70s culture pastiche worked to its advantage.[42] There was also acclaim for the characters and actors, most notably Depp as Barnabas—who several critics said was the stand-out character due to his humorous culture shock[39]—and Pfeiffer.[43]
Roger Ebert gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four and said: "[The film] offers wonderful things, but they aren't what's important. It's as if Burton directed at arm's length, unwilling to find juice in the story." He went on to note that "Much of the amusement comes from Depp's reactions to 1970s pop culture," and concluded that the film "begins with great promise, but then the energy drains out".[39]Manohla Dargis, in a mostly-positive review written for The New York Times, said that the film "isn't among Mr. Burton's most richly realized works, but it's very enjoyable, visually sumptuous and, despite its lugubrious source material and a sporadic tremor of violence, surprisingly effervescent," and opined that Burton's "gift for deviant beauty and laughter has its own liberating power."[38]
Rolling Stone's Peter Travers gave the film a mixed two-and-a-half stars out of four, claiming that "After a fierce and funny start, Dark Shadows simply spins its wheels," and adding that "the pleasures of Dark Shadows are frustratingly hit-and-miss. In the end, it all collapses into a spectacularly gorgeous heap."[40] In The Washington Post, Ann Hornaday dismissed the film, awarding it just one-and-a-half stars out of four and explaining that "Burton's mash-up of post-'60s kitsch and modern-day knowingness strikes a chord that is less self-aware than fatally self-satisfied. Dark Shadows doesn't know where it wants to dwell: in the eerie, subversive penumbra suggested by its title or in playful, go-for-broke camp."[33]
Richard Corliss of Time pointed out that "[Burton]'s affection is evident, and his homage sometimes acute," and reasoned: "All right, so Burton has made less a revival of the old show than a hit-or-miss parody pageant," but praised the star power of the film, relenting that "attention must be paid to movie allure, in a star like Depp and his current harem. Angelique may be the only demonic among the women here, but they're all bewitching."[41]Peter Bradshaw, in the British newspaper The Guardian, weighed the film in a mixed write-up, giving it three stars out of five, and pointing out his feeling that "the Gothy, jokey 'darkness' of Burton's style is now beginning to look very familiar; he has built his brand to perfection in the film marketplace, and it is smarter and more distinctive than a lot of what is on offer at the multiplex, but there are no surprises. There are shadows, but they conceal nothing."[35]
Dark Shadows was released on both Blu-ray and DVD in the United States on October 2, 2012 (the date confirmed by the official Dark ShadowsFacebook page and the official Dark Shadows website).[45] It was released on both formats several days earlier in Australia; in stores on September 24, and online on September 26.[46] The film was released on home video in the UK on October 15.
The DVD includes just one featurette, "The Collinses: Every Family Has Its Demons",[47] while the Blu-ray contains a total of nine short featurettes and six deleted scenes.[48] Several worldwide releases of both the DVD and Blu-ray contain an UltraVioletdigital copy of the film.
Possible sequel
In December 2011, Pfeiffer told MTV that she was hoping there would be sequels to the film.[49] On May 8, 2012, various tabloids, like Variety, reported that Warner Bros. may have wanted to turn Dark Shadows into a film franchise.[50] On the same day, Collider mentioned that the ending lends itself to a possible sequel. When Burton was asked if he thought this could be a possible start to a franchise, he replied: "No. Because of the nature of it being like a soap opera, that was the structure. It wasn't a conscious decision. First of all, it's a bit presumptuous to think that. If something works out, that's one thing, but you can't ever predict that. [The ending] had more to do with the soap opera structure of it."[23]
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