Tim Burton fans are easily categorized into two distinct groups these days: the people who enjoy his earlier gothic influenced work which solidified him as an auteur; films such as Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands, and the fans who prefer his more recent family friendly Hollywood blockbuster targeted films; fare like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Alice in Wonderland. Now, sometimes the two overlap slightly but from my experience they tend to be the annoyingly obsessive Tim Burton fangirls who wet themselves at the slightest mention of a Burton-Depp team-up (and yet I've never heard any of them say they've seen Ed Wood).
Needless to say, the Burton fans of yore have at this point all but given up on the director ever getting back to his roots having sold his soul to the boardroom made movie machine. Alas, his next movie was announced having finished Alice in Wonderland as being yet another collaboration with Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Danny Elfman. Cue a thousand eyes rolling. But wait, turns out its an adaptation of an old long running gothic TV series about a creepy family of misfits and monsters set in a haunted house.
"Fantastic! Tim Burton is making a Munsters movie!"
Wait, nope, the other one...
"Tim Burton is heading up an Addams Family feature film reboot?! Inspired!"
Hmmm... almost, but not this time...
"You're saying there was another gothic tv series about a creepy family of misfits and monsters set in a haunted house?"
Why yes, of course, how could you forget good old Dark Shadows!
"..."
I can honestly say I have yet to talk to even a single person who has heard of the original TV show prior to learning about this feature film adaptation. Now I'm not sure if that's just a British thing, but from what I've read online its hardly a household name in America either. Thankfully I can safely say though that if you are in this camp then rest assured, its easy to assume that right from the films inception the marketers knew it was a relatively obscure IP and so the film stands as its own work of which you really need no prior knowledge of the series before watching.
Now, most of the time when you're sitting watching a film for the first time you'll get to a point somewhere around the 30minute mark or maybe a little later on about half way through the film where you'll subconsciously say to yourself either that you're really enjoying the film, or you're not. Not the case with Dark Shadows. Literally from one scene to the next my opinion on the film shifted from either end of the love-hate spectrum right to the very end. In fact hate might have been a strong word there. I never hated the film but my God did I cringe. And I mean really some of the dialogue and the manner its acted out just was so jarringly out of place in the film that I was physically wincing and repelling backwards in my seat, not too unlike a vampire being shown a cross.
On the other hand I really immensely enjoyed so much about the film. The overall look of the film is really attractive and it's hard not to get excited knowing that Burton still has it in him to create dark, horror inspired films. Its reassuring to see pumpkin patches, fog and gravestones. Indeed, a handle of scenes evoked strong memories of Sleepy Hollow which to my mind is, at least set wise, Burtons darkest, most typically gothic film, whilst the contrasting bright colours that drench the world beyond the Collins Manor are an obvious throwback to Edward Scissorhands. The trouble is that neither of these two colour schemes are particularly defined and often creep into each other which means the darker scenes aren't as scary or even as moody as they should be, and the statement Burton was making on suburban society in Scissorhands is completely diminished.
The cast all do a fine enough job given the complete lack of material most of them have to work with. The original series was a soap opera and so naturally there were a lot of characters throughout its 1,225 episode (yes, really) series run, and it seems that almost every single one of those characters were forcibly chucked into this film. Each has their own arc sure, but they're so shallow it's frustrating, especially so due to the talent on offer. Its of no surprise to anybody that the only cast member with any real material to work with is Johnny Depp, and that's fine because he's the lead character and top billing actor, and for what it's worth his portrayal of vampire Barnabas Collins is rather good. Everyone I've talked to about the film has told me "He's just ripping off Jack Sparrow", but that's just how Johnny Depp is, he's a physical actor and to the average movie goers eyes, yes, this probably does seem like Depp recreating his undoubtedly most famous role, however fans of horror cinema will see subtle glints of Max Schreck and Bela Lugosi in his vampire. Without a shadow of a doubt however the real star of the show is Eva Green as the witch Angelique Bouchard. Green's ability to physically shift between deranged looking witch to sultry siren at the tip of a hat is pitch perfect throughout, making her not only the most interesting character on screen, but the one I at least, ended up getting the most emotionally invested in.
As with most of his work lately, Danny Elfman's score is completely forgettable though it compliments the film nicely whilst the rest of the soundtrack shines. Well known hits from The Carpenters, Barry White and Alice Cooper are fun and inspired, as well as often being a source of humor which is sadly lacking or falls flat in most of the dialogue.
The strange thing about the film is that at its core it's so fatally flawed it should really have never made it out of the studio the way it is, but for all these shortfalls it's just so damn hard not to get swept up in the fun nature of the film. Its obvious that the cast were all having fun, and its obvious that Tim Burton and screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith have a real appreciation for the source material. It's never going to be an easy job to convert a soap opera into a 2 hour movie, but they've really tried to stick to the original format's conventions as best as possible and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I only wish they'd have made the 3½ hour epic that looks so desperate to escape from the film we ended up getting.
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