Barnabas Collins is back, and because it’s Johnny Depp this time, it’s really Jack Sparrow on Zanax and in need of a manicure. Okay, admit it. You’re not coming to see another vampire movie. You’re here to see Johnny and what he and director Tim Burton are up to.

There will be some long stretches, so be patient. We start the long crawl to the finale with a prequel that takes us from the mucky night world of Liverpool in the 1700s, and plops us and the Collins family on the coast of Maine, where they use their fortune to go into the fish cannery business, amass a great fortune, build a huge castle and buy into the American dream. Mitt is right. Corporations are people. In this case, really, truly, scary people.

Here, Barnabas grows to semi-weirdly androgynous manhood, and runs afoul of a lustful servant girl bred in darkness with the curious name of Angelique (a lustful Eva Green.) Barnabas rejects her, so she takes umbrage and moves to separate him from human existence with extreme prejudice: big chains, strong coffin, big hole, and lays our hero down for the big dirt nap. But first, she drops his true love from a very steep cliff into the briny.

Flick ahead to the 1970s and we meet a lithesome girl on a bus bound for Maine. Victoria (“call me Vicky”) played by Bella Heathcote, is on her way to Collinswood Manor to become a governess for the very youngest of the clan, young David (Gulliver McGrath) who seems to be devoid of any Collins bad blood.

With Vicky’s arrival, we get to meet the current residents, a Charles Addams fruit basket of Collins folk: Roger (Jonny Lee Miller) and his son who will be governed by Vicky, and the still smoldering and smoky Michelle Pfeiffer who plays Elizabeth, dame of the manor and direct descendent to the blood. In addition, there is Elizabeth’s daughter, a simmering Lolita-ish (Chloe Grace Moretz) a pre-teen who hides some very hairy secrets to be revealed just when we need them.

Not to be missed is Helena Bonham Carter’s hilarious family shrink, Dr. Hoffman, who sucks up martinis and mucks about in a wonderful red fright wig.

Of course, as we expected, a merry band of workers, in the process of building Collinsport’s new McDonalds, unearths our Barnabas, who now returns to stir more blood and confusion. Who says you can’t go home again?

His nocturnal journey from the grave to the manor, as he passes through town, is one of the best parts of the movie. He stops and stares, lurks and hides, ogles the teen crowd at the local soda shop, mixes with the street traffic, is mesmerized by asphalt, and bewitched by traffic lights. Because it’s almost Halloween, no one seems to be alarmed at this creature.

We’re not surprised to learn that our friendly witch Angelique has been busy while Barnabas was moldering in the grave. She has, over the centuries, emerged as a strong Sarah Palin femme executive, sworn to bring the Collins house down.

There are some laughs, big and tiny, sprinkled here and there, mostly fixed around Barnabas’ views of the new world. He is aroused by Chloe’s lava lamp, horrified by a toy troll doll, and tries to kill a television image of Karen Carpenter by kicking in the screen. “Die, tiny songstress.” Those are the good laughs.

But this is Burton land, and we know we’re going to get hit in the face with some big effects and they arrive, mostly in the last 15 minutes. The children, who may have slipped into the audience, may be confused, or at best, prematurely pixilated by the house wrecking, off-the-wall and rug-ripping sex scene between Barnabas and Angelique. Kama Sutra on crack. The living dead really know how to get it on with gusto.

“Dark Shadows,” penned by Seth Grahame-Smith, moves smoothly through all the cliches and one-liners at a snail’s pace. All the players are adept, but it is Depp with his Vincent Price articulation and his marvelous “Nosferatu” finger works that keeps us awake. When the host of our party is having such an obvious, delicious, good time, how can we not?

Remember Jackie Earle Haley from “Bad News Bears?” Haley has become a cult figure in this past decade, and we’re happy to see him jump in here as straight man to Depp.

We’re also reminded of just how wonderful the music of the 70s really was. The great Moody Blues opens the movie with “Nights in White Satin,” and the Carpenter’s “Top of the World.” Who could walk out on the Moody Blues?

Even Alice Cooper comes aboard as the featured attraction at Barnabas’s big ball. “He’s the ugliest woman I’ve ever seen,” our host exclaims.

Burton’s movie is about an hour too long, but the music, the visual tricks by Burton and cameraman Bruno Delbonnel, and the splendid cast, make it bearable. And let’s not forget John Bush’s set decorations. Artistry.

J.P. Devine is a former stage and screen actor.