Dark Shadows (Tim Burton, 2012)

The Burton-Depp-Bonham Carter love-in is on all too comfortable ground in this comic Gothic horror piece based on a little-known but extremely long-running 'sixties TV series. Depp, as the tormented vampire Barnabas Collins, released from his grave after 200 years and pining after his lost love, is basically Edward Scissorhands in packaging and Sweeney Todd in delivery and murderous tendencies. Whilst his bafflement at the ways of the modern world and ludicrous period speech (also see Sleepy Hollow) provide some witty vignettes to begin with, it soon grows tiresome through sheer familiarity and the elephant in the room that is the shadow of The Addams Family cannot be ignored. Someone really needs to give Burton ten commandments of things he should no longer be allowed to touch, supernatural whimsicality being the first.

4/10