Review: Dark Shadows (2012)
Cast: Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Helena Bonham Carter
Director: Tim Burton
Country: USA
Genre: Comedy | Fantasy
Official Trailer: Here
Editor’s Notes: For an alternative perspective on Dark Shadows, check out Kevin Ketchum’s review.
Dark Shadows is a film of dry charms and wet failures, a movie where the quiet tone and sly humor is doused by the writ-large panache of its uncomfortably bawdy humor and misplaced epic canvas. There is a very wry, gothic Burtonesque homage to the ‘60s-era cult classic TV series struggling to break free from the more dominant, equally-Burtonesque, quasi sex comedy-cum-haunted house actioner. To say the film is tonally discordant is being far more polite than the film itself is.
There is a very wry, gothic Burtonesque homage to the ‘60s-era cult classic TV series struggling to break free from the more dominant, equally-Burtonesque, quasi sex comedy-cum-haunted house actioner.
One could refer to the film as Tim Burton’s Brady Bunch Movie, since he is essentially cribbing that spoof-tastic formula – campy TV icons travel through a time machine and are spat out in a more modernized self-referential cinematic update – and filtering it through his twisted nightmare factory. The differences are that Burton takes himself a little more seriously…up to a point. Dark Shadows moves from dry fish-out-of-water humor to broad sex gags to drama so leaden it belongs in a soap opera similar to the original Dan Curtis’ original series. As a result, it would be easy to think the movie is too messy to work, but the final verdict is that it might be too controlled. What fanboys love about the TV show is how it just threw random shit against the wall to see what would stick. This cinematic reimagining seems too eager to recapture the neat-and-tidy glory of Edward Scissorhands.
Johnny Depp returns for his 113th pairing with Burton, although unlike most of the earlier director-actor collaborations, this one feels a little thrown together, a phoned-in project that was likely more fun for the participants than the viewers. Depp plays Barnabas Collins, a lovelorn English immigrant in 18th century Maine, who is cursed to live as a vampire by the vicious witch, Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green). She dooms the Collins family because, quite simply, Barnabas doesn’t return her hopeless affection…hell hath no fury like a demon witch scorned.
Jump ahead two centuries. Barnabas is freed from his underground tomb by construction workers in 1972 – cleverly, one year after the original Dark Shadows series ceased production. Barnabas returns to his family’s historic Collinwood Manor to find the once-grand estate is now a shell of its former self. The Collins family descendants have fared little better – matriarch Elizabeth (Michelle Pfeiffer) lives with an extended family consisting of angry teenage daughter Carolyn (Chloe Grace Moretz), despicable brother Roger (Jonny Lee Miller), his seemingly-disturbed son David (Gulliver McGrath), and family psychiatrist Julia Hoffman (Helena Bonham Carter). Barnabas is determined to rescue his family from financial and interpersonal ruin by exorcising the family demons, so to speak, and restoring the Collins name in the Maine fishing industry, now controlled by none other than Barnabas’ lifelong foe, Angelique.
The concept is a good one, but the screenplay must be able to balance the fish-out-of-water humor, the cheeky gothic horror, and the legitimate family drama.
The concept is a good one, but the screenplay must be able to balance the fish-out-of-water humor, the cheeky gothic horror, and the legitimate family drama. First-time feature screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith isn’t nimble enough to pull it off, delivering some solid jokes but failing the characters at every turn. His fallback is to depict every successive female as some sort of wanton sexual deviant and then play them each off of Depp, who is reliably dry in his reactions. It’s weak writing overall and particularly pathetic in its representations of women; I’m frankly shocked that actresses like Carter and Green would subject themselves to such portrayals when there is little payoff other than creepy comeuppance and telegraphed BOO! moments. Frequent Burton collaborator John August (Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) is only given co-story credit on the film, and the screenplay is sorely missing his imaginative and humane touch.
Depp is amusing as always, although he is lacking in his usual performance zeal. Part of that is by design, since Barnabas is a regal, awakened vampire. But this is also just not a brilliant cinematic character, which is shocking considering Burton’s love of the source material. Of Burton, much can be said for his early tonal choices, which are dry and moody with spikes of goofy comedy. The visual element is interesting enough, although the production design and cinematography are not as compelling as Burton usually delivers. By the end, when the tension ratchets and we should be riding the wave of a great, rollicking Burtonian climax, it all feels very limp and obligatory, like the filmmakers are futilely chasing the very dark, very daunting shadows of both the source material and their earlier, much better work.
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