Entertainment Weekly, May 11, 2012 – Into the Shadows
Title: Into the Shadows
Author: Anthony Breznican
Publication: Entertainment Weekly
Issue: May 11, 2012
IF EDWARD SCISSORHANDS COULD MEET Barnabas Collins, the Nosferatu-clawed vampire from the new Dark Shadows movie, they’d have a lot more in common than just the world’s most dangerous handshake. Both are troubled, cadaver-white creatures who have extreme difficulty blending in with normal society. They’re also the cinematic bookends of a friendship between Tim Burton and Johnny Depp that spans two decades and eight movies. Dark Shadows (rated PG-13 and out May 11) is the duo’s latest look at the lifestyles of the weird and infamous, a horror comedy inspired by an eccentric 1966-71 supernatural soap opera they both adored as boys. The theme of this one is like a gothic Norman Rockwell painting, heartwarming and bloodcurdling at the same time. Its message: No one is truly alone if he has family. Or-in vampire terms-blood of the familial kind is thicker than blood of the drinkable kind.
While the poor character from 1990’s EdwardScissorhands was utterly alone and dependent on the kindness of strangers, Barnabas is blessed with being a full-blown paterfamilias. The vampire, upon awakening from a 200-year slumber, inherits a rogues’ gallery of relatives who acquired the wealth he helped create before being buried “alive” (or whatever you call what he is). When Barnabas is unearthed by construction workers in the swinging year of 1972,
