Tim Burton lights up 'Dark Shadows'

A generation (or two) before "True Blood," "Vampire Diaries" and even "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," little children ran home from school to watch a soap opera -- a vampire soap opera, whose theme music still echoes in the minds of those damaged, Gothic-minded tykes. It was an age without TiVo, Hulu or even VHS, so they had to be home by 4 lest they miss the latest weird goings-on in the accursed village of Collinsport.

"Dark Shadows" was a phenomenon -- the first soap to go supernatural, a daytime dose of dread and camp. Star Jonathan Frid -- the Canadian actor who died last month at age 87 -- became a household name as Barnabas Collins, the resident ghoul of the Collinwood mansion. The show ran from 1966 to 1971, but left a lasting impression -- notably on Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, whose resurrected "Dark Shadows" opens tomorrow.

Starring Depp, Eva Green, Helena Bonham Carter, Chloë Grace Moretz, Michelle Pfeiffer, Jonny Lee Miller and Jackie Earle Haley, "Dark Shadows" opens, fittingly, in 1972, with the discovery of Barnabas' ironclad coffin in a construction pit outside Collinsport. Freed from his casket and chains, Barnabas promptly kills everyone in sight and makes his way back to Collinwood, where he reunites with the surprised caretaker Willie (Haley). In the original series, he had awakened the slumbering vampire Barnabas while looking for the family jewels beneath the mansion (all this gets revived in the remake).

As he did in the TV series, Barnabas passes himself off as the family's strange relation from England -- although there are some who know the truth, most critically Angelique Bouchard (Green). She's Collinsport's leading citizen, seafood mogul, spurned lover and the witch who originally turned Barnabas into a vampire and buried him alive two centuries earlier (which may contradict the TV show, but so it goes).

For Green, Angelique is just the latest in a career of playing extreme women -- though she was initially afraid Angelique might be too far over-the-top.

"I knew Johnny would be going big," she said. "As his enemy, I knew I'd have to be his equal."

othic world of Tim Burton."This story first appeared in Newsday.