Of all the oddballs Johnny Depp has played for Tim Burton, few have been as one-note amusing as Barnabas Collins, the resurrected vampire aristocrat of Dark Shadows. Don’t be fooled by his ghostly pallor or Nosferatu fingernails: Barnabas is a gentleman, even when it comes to the undignified business of sinking his teeth into a stranger’s jugular. Buried for two centuries, he awakes to a brave new ’70s world of bell-bottoms and sideburns, mistaking the neon glow of a McDonald’s for a satanic oracle.

The bloodsucker as a befuddled tourist is an old joke. So thank Mephistopheles for Depp, whose deadpan delivery punches up easy gags about Lava lamps and Scooby-Doo. Even Eva Green throws herself into the role of bombshell villainess with gusto: Depp may have the fangs, but she’s the one with bite.

For all its fish-out-of-water dopiness, Dark Shadows comes closer to the unhinged, black-comic spirit of early Burton than anything the director has made in years.