Dark Shadows Is "Love Letter To Horror Fans"

TD’s thoughts:

I’ll start this off by making it quite clear that I cannot call myself a fan of the original Dark Shadows TV show. I have only vague memories of seeing it on occasion when I was extremely young. To be perfectly honest, I had never even really thought about the show again since then. That is until last year when I heard that The Bromantic Pair, Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, were adapting a feature film based on the show.  That pair is usually magic together, although I must admit to having never cared for Edward Scissorhands, which was the start of their partnership, and not exactly being blown away by anything other than Visual Effects in the recent films Alice In Wonderland and Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. I would, however, give four out of the seven films they have worked on together anywhere from a passing grade (Corpse Bride, Sleepy Hollow) to extremely high marks (Ed Wood, Sweeney Todd) so I decided I definitely had to give Dark Shadows a chance.

Much like Barnabas says to one of the victims he’s feeding on, “You have no idea how thirsty I’ve been”…for an actual good vampire film to come around these last few years. There have been a few here and there (Stake Land comes to mind), but for the most part we have been fed nothing but absolute drivel. Leave it to Tim Burton to throw his hat in the genre fire and watch it burn brighter than a thousand suns!

I absolutely adore everything about this film. First and foremost, I love how Depp is so into playing the character of Barnabas. It is like he is discovering his love of acting all over again, feeling like the first time. I know from many interviews with him that this guy would probably be happier if he had made it as a musician, rather than actor. This is one of the few times (Ed Wood is another rare example) that I can tell he is having an enormous amount of fun playing the character. As the film progresses, and every line he speaks just reinforces this belief. It is as if he knows that there is a chance he will only be able to play the lead character from a TV show that he adores once in his life, and damned if he isn’t going to throw every ounce of energy he can into this performance. He is absolutely mesmerizing in the role. I will argue with anyone who wants to, that this is probably the defining performance of his career. 

The story is pretty straightforward, which I really appreciated. I was a little concerned going into this, thinking that I would enjoy it more had I known the many storylines from the TV show. That is absolutely not the case at all. If anything, I would imagine it might hinder it a bit, because you would be comparing the two while watching the film.

Barnabas makes the (as it turns out) quite foolish mistake of breaking a woman’s, named Angelique (played by the stunning Eva Green,) heart. Unfortunately for Old Barn, this woman just happens to be a witch. Apparently the evil and powerful ones aren’t all decrepit hags, because she curses Barnabas but good. He gets turned into a Vampire, and if that isn’t bad enough, she decides to have him buried alive for a 200 year dirt nap. Eventually he gets out of this predicament, and returns to his family’s mansion in the year 1972. He finds the mansion in disrepair, and his descendants are in much the same shape! 

The main criticism I have heard about this film is that Burton isn’t really stretching himself as a director. I’m not putting a whole lot of stock in that claim. This doesn’t feel like a film that I’ve seen from him before, even though it obviously has his stamp all over it. If you come across a Tim Burton film, you will know it is his work within five minutes. There isn’t a higher compliment I can pay to a Director than that. What I said about Depp loving the material applies to Tim Burton as well. I can tell that a lot of care was put into getting this note perfect, and the end result is anything but paint by numbers. The film does feature Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter as Burton has cast many times before, but there is a reason they are there - Depp is the Marlon Brando of our time, and Helena Bonham Carter may be Burton’s partner in real life, but she wouldn’t be any more than a bit part in one of Burton’s films if she wasn’t a damn good actress.

The supporting cast is extremely solid as well. Jackie Earle Haley (Watchmen, Freddy Krueger in the criminally underrated remake of A Nightmare On Elm Street) is hilarious as drunkard Caretaker Willie Loomis, Michelle Pfeiffer reunites with Burton after 20 years earlier, meowing and hissing her way into my heart as Catwoman, rising young star Chloë Grace Moretz grows up before our eyes as Carolyn Stoddard, and we even get a fantastic cameo by my personal favorite Vampire of all time…Christopher Lee! He appears in a fantastic silver screen role reversal that was a ton of fun to watch, albeit brief. If I ever meet Tim Burton, I’m buying him a beer for that quick scene alone!  Well, that and the fact that he allowed Alice Cooper  two songs in his cameo, and one of them is one of my absolute favorite Alice tunes of all time. Not going to post the song title for the Alice fans who might be reading this, though. I want them to be as surprised as I was!

Having given all of the above praise, I will fully admit that this film, for the most part, is NOT going to be accepted by mainstream audiences. There are a couple of scenes that come to mind that just aren’t the “kid friendly” kind of safe that appease the masses.  On top of that, Burton just isn’t going to give you one tone with his films, and pretty much never really has. There are always a range of emotions going on in Burton’s films. This one is no exception. It’s as if he is deliberately making sure the tone does not sway too far in any one direction. He refuses to allow his films to be pigeonholed, and should be loudly applauded for staying true to his vision.

I want to truly thank Tim Burton and Johnny Depp from the bottom of my black heart for loving Dark Shadows enough to decide to deliver this wonderful film to the masses. It is a riotously entertaining love letter to Horror fans the world over, and I, for one, cannot wait for the Bluie release to take many more trips into the Shadows for many years to come.  Bravo, gentlemen.

Four ½ JAWS Barrels Out Of Five

Boo’s Thoughts:

Truthfully, I don’t have that much to add, because my ever articulate husband has already said much of what needs to be said. I had no doubts that I would love this film. I’m one of the biggest Tim Burton marks out there. I was nine or ten when I first saw Beetlejuice and it was the greatest thing in the world! Never before had a movie so resonated with little Boo’s fanciful heart. 

And Burton has never disappointed me since. Wait, there was that Edward Scissorhands movie. Apparently I’m in the minority (so it’s lucky I found TD!), in that I found Scissorhands to be so boring. Maybe it’s because I’m not really a froo-froo-lovey-movie kind of girl (though Sense & Sensibility will get me every time). Or maybe it’s because Johnny Depp was so not as hot as he should be. Or maybe it’s just because I can’t watch that movie without obsessing over the big question, “How the hell does that guy wipe after taking a shit?!” Whatever it is, it didn’t do it for me.

But that movie aside, Burton has never disappointed me. And Dark Shadows is no exception.

I just have to reiterate how unfair I think some reviewers comments have been. Burton’s being lazy? America has fallen out of love with Johnny Depp? This just doesn’t make any sense to me. Maybe these comments are derived from the fact that Burton and Depp do their own thing now, march to their own drummer, and therefore are whittling their audiences down to the most diehard, loyal fans. If that’s the case, more power to them. As two cinematic titans, these two have put in their time, made their money, and are more than entitled to make the movies they want to make, and not necessarily the movies the masses want to see.

But I also have to wonder if those reviewers were ones that had sentimental attachments to the TV series. If you’re a super fan of the TV series, loved the tortured and morose Barnabas Collins, then this might not be the movie for you. And that’s understandable. I feel your pain, peeps. As a monster fan of the Sookie Stackhouse books, I’m having some serious issues with True Blood. Like why is Tara such a, hateful, angry bitch? Is it really necessary to spend half of every goddamn episode in bed with Sookie and Eric? AND WHAT THE HELL IS THAT STUPID HEAVENLY LIGHT SHOOTING FROM SOOKIE’S PALM?!

Okay, I have to stop, I’m getting heartburn.

So, yeah, get out there and see Dark Shadows. It may not appeal to the masses, but it should appeal to all of our fellow horror fans!

Click here to see the trailer for Dark Shadows.