Dark Shadows begins in the late 18th century, when Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp) is the young member of a family so important that the whole Maine town is named Collinsport. Barnabas has an affair with Angelique (Eva Green), but he can't give her the love she wants because he's in love with Josette (Bella Heathcote). Unfortunately Angelique is a witch, and a vengeful one: She makes Josette walk off a cliff to her death, turns Barnabas into a vampire so he can't join his love in death, and has the townspeople bury Barnabas in a coffin.
We now jump ahead to 1972 (a year after the Dark Shadows tv series ended), and the Collins family is fading. Matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Michelle Pfeiffer) tries to keep the family together while aware of their problems. Young David Collins (Gulliver McGrath) has been traumatized since his mother was lost at sea. David's father Roger (Jonny Lee Miller) is more interested in stealing than in family or, well, anything else. Doctor Julia Hoffman (Helena Bonham Carter) is a pill-popping, hard-drinking psychiatrist who came to help David and never left. Teenager Carolyn Stoddard (Chloe Grace Motentz) is surly and rebellious. New governess Victoria Winters (also played by Bella Heathcote -- you see where this is heading) wants to care for David -- but sees a mysterious ghost wandering the mansion. Even the idiotic caretaker Willie (Jackie Earle Haley) knows how messed up everything is for them. Their unlikely salvation seems to be from the return of Barnabas, accidentally freed by some construction workers (who he kills) and determined to restore the Collins family to glory.
Unfortunately, the main business rival to the Collins is run by Angelique, the main power in Collinsport -- and still as in love/hate with Barnabas as ever. Who will win when vampire and witch battle? And what of the ghosts, family secrets, and other goings-on in the gothic Collins manor?
Overall grade: C+
Reviewed by James Lynch
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