When it was announced Tim Burton was adapting the cult soap opera into a full blooded vampire movie for Hollywood, there were plenty of skeptics, and this is one instance in which the skeptics were right in their reservations. The resulting film is a lavish production, but in trying to cram years worth of material into one film with minimal cuts results in a film with an inscrutable story and a wide array of tonal inconsistencies. However, when contrasted with some other modern vampire films (Twilight and the Vampire Academy just to pick a few), this film's style holds up as one of the more strong modern/supernatural worlds created by contemporary cinema. While most of this film is content to be simply a quirky vampire comedy, with very mixed results, cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel (currently nominated for an Oscar for his work on Inside Llewyn Davis) decides to go full-stop Gothic with the visuals, creating a sumptuous palette of subdued colors and harsh light, utilizing a visual shorthand that has gotten him those 4 Oscar nominations. Best Shot: When Barnabus Collins is turned into a vampire by Angelique, he holds his hands up, and from his point of view, as his fingernails extend to Nosferatu-esque length, the camera frames Angelique on the edge of a cliff overlooking him. This entire sequence is the only time in Dark Shadows the tone and visuals match up perfectly.
Self-evidently a man who writes for the Internet, Robert also writes films, plays, teleplays, and short stories when he's not working on a movie set somewhere. He lives somewhere behind the Hollywood sign.
