They assembled an all-star cast for this film. They included "dark" favorites such as Alice Cooper and Christopher Lee. Character actors like Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. Toss in Chloë Grace Moretz, Michelle Pfeiffer, Eva Green and a great soundtrack and you would think you would have a great film, right? They forgot to hire a writer.

The film opens with a long narration to give us the 196 year old background, then shifts to 1972. Some of the humor involves the typical 200 year old man stuff coming into a strange era. It also had the immature "balls" humor. The dialogue was bad. It managed to be campy without being funny. The advantage of bringing the series to the big screen would be the use of great special effects limited by a stage. This was underutilized.

This movie was classless. None of these women could hold a candle to Lara Parker. And if you are going to give 1972 as the year the movie takes place, why would you play music that wasn't released until 1978? I thought Chloë Grace Moretz did great in her role. Gulliver McGrath as David was also fairly decent. The writing, editing and directing killed this film. Wait for the rental.

No f-bombs or nudity. Weird sex scene.

I am a huge fan of the old Dark Shadows shows. I liked the old series, bloopers and all. I liked the films House of Dark Shadows and to a lesser degree Night of Dark Shadows. I liked the 1991 revival series of Dark Shadows. This new Tim Burton/Johnny Depp version has some good elements in it, like the costumes, soundtrack and special effects, but the problem here lies in the written word. The script relies too much on gags, some funny and some rather lame. The basic characters are mostly here with the exception of the melding of Maggie Evans into Victoria Winters, and the actor playing Willie Loomis does a better job with the character than did the one from the 1991 revival, who chose (or was directed) to play the role as a half-wit.(The one element I disliked about the revival). The 1970s music, cars, costumes and hairdos are spot-on and add to the comfy 1970s feel of the piece. The climax is all special effects and one "revelation" of the plot is so absurdly done here that it is (unintentionally) laughable. In all, I would say that this film may appeal more to those who never saw any of the original versions of this than the fans of them. I didn't hate this film, I just didn't love it either.