Movie Reviews

NEW YORK ––  Long before "Twilight's" Edward Cullen and other Johnny-come-lately vampires, there was television's Barnabas Collins, played by the recently deceased Jonathan Frid. Time was when legions of teenage baby boomers would rush home from school each Johnny Depp stars in a scene from the movie "Dark Shadows." The Catholic News Service classification is L -- limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG- 13 -- parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13. (CNS photo/Warner Bros.) weekday afternoon to find out what Barnabas was up to by catching the latest episode of "Dark Shadows," the wildly popular gothic soap opera that largely revolved around him.

Two feature films and a long afterlife in syndication ensued, not to mention reincarnation on DVD and in any number of other media.

Mostly set in 1972, the year after the television version went off the air -- it was first broadcast in 1966 -- director Tim Burton's big-screen homage, "Dark Shadows" (Warner Bros.), is a campy comic take on the original.

Though visually striking and initially amusing, his riff on the low-budget, but by now venerable, property introduces some discordant notes as it seeks to garner laughs from casual sexual encounters. Then the melody gets lost altogether amid a crescendo of special effects and supernatural mayhem.