It had been Johnny Depp’s childhood dream to one day play Barnabas Collins, a vampire character from a popular daytime soap opera, but it took him and his old friend Tim Burton half a lifetime to make a movie version of Dark Shadows. The result is a delightful mix of horror and drama carefully sprinkled with bits of Burton’s particular brand of macabre and sarcastic humour, making it one of the most enjoyable recent movies of the director even if the script is slightly overloaded with plots and characters. Because the movie had not been a particular financial or critical success, Warner did not make much of an effort for the home video releases. The DVD is especially disappointing, containing only one short featurette as bonus material, but this does not make Dark Shadows less amazing.

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