Dark Shadows: Tim Burton's new direction

Dark Shadows (2012) uses the premise that vampires cast a shadow that is somehow bright.  This is explained in the opening titles, and is really the only consistent feature of the 79-minute experimental narrative.  Johnny Depp stars in the role of lately-risen Hobnail, a vampire who walks around an empty mansion and is occasionally frightened by his incandescent shadow.

The stark lack of plot, characters, continuity, and genre can perhaps be explained by the unorthodox approach to production director Tim Burton took.  Depp’s scenes were all shot on greenscreen over a nonstop seven-day period with Depp, Burton, and two crew members locked in a small studio.  “There was no script,” Depp said in an interview, “Tim had a notebook with four or five drawings in it.  I thought they were his kids’ drawings or something, but then he told me he doesn’t have kids.  It turned out that those were his movie idea.”

Burton explained that he wanted Depp’s improvisations to shape the film.  “I wanted Johnny to become the role,” Burton told Variety.  “I think where he was by the end of that shoot was really, it really shows.”

In the film’s penultimate scene, Hobnail watches something off camera move back and forth and muses that he has lost all his ideas, he’s gone to the same well so many times that the water, once limpid, is now muddied, and he has long since sucked dry the arteries of his muse.  Depp abruptly breaks character and says, “Do you know who that is, Tim?”  The movie then ends with Hobnail walking in place down a long corridor, his bright shadow eventually washing out the entire screen.