I've always been a fan of 'Dark Shadows', ever since I was young and sci-fi channel would air reruns of the cult soap opera from the 1970s. It was something I really looked forward to watching whenever it was on, and while cheesy now, it still had great storytelling and fantastic characters, especially in the late Johnathon Frid's Barnabus Collins, who would go on to become what the show was best known for. There have been two tries at bringing back the franchise since it went off the air, neither of which gained any traction. One of them, the series from the nineties even featured a young Joseph Gordon Levitt as the young David Collins. But some things are just better left alone, and sadly, the same can be said about this newest try at recreating the cult favorite. This time, we have Tim Burton at the helm, with a script written by Seth Grahame-Smith, and starring Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Helena Bonham Carter, Eva Green, and Jackie Earl Haley. The formula sounds like it should be a real winner, but needless to say, the film feels more like a mediocre fan film with a big budget than the great adaptation that it could have been.
