So the missus and I were bored, having finally run out of Game of Thrones episodes to watch now that the season is over. We have HBO for free for a while and we figured, what the Hell, let’s watching something. Dark Shadows, starring Johnny Depp and everyone else Tim Burton normally casts. How bad could it be?
Turns out, pretty bad. Dark Shadows was originally a horror soap opera about a vampire named Barnabus Collins. Burton decided to make it a comedy for some reason. That’s a little like an interior decorator trying his hand at reupholstering the insider of your car. Sure, he might understand the basic mechanics of color and style, but he’s really out of depth in terms of what really needs to happen.
Consequently, Burton ends up going out of his way to alienate anyone that might watch this turkey. Despite a stellar cast that includes Michelle Pfeiffer, Helena Bonham Carter (of course), Jackie Earle Haley and Chloë Grace Moretz, there’s just nothing here but a TV plot. The entire movie takes place in 1972, ie, 40 years ago. That means most of the people that this movie is aimed at, don’t get the references to the time period and didn’t see the show.
On top of all that, Barnabus isn’t a very likable character and comedy leads need to be likable. In one of the early scenes (spoiler) he kills a group of construction guys. Now Burton or the screenwriters could’ve easily made the construction workers so unlikable that in movie terms, we wouldn’t be bothered by their deaths. Unfortunately, they don’t bother and he kills like 11. That’s a lot of bodies to leave behind, especially in 1972 in a small town in New England. Additionally, Barnabus doesn’t seem all that bothered by his butchery. Then, to add insult to injury, about halfway through the movie, a very similar scene happens again just to get a laugh in the short term. But in the long term, it fatally wounds any chance for the audience to cheer for Barnabus.
And there are a few basic rules of screenwriting that your ignore at your peril. One of them is, you shouldn’t introduce a major character or character change very late in the movie without any foreshadowing. Burton and the writers do exactly that and you’re left going, “What? What just happened? WTF was that?”
Dark Shadows is a movie that seems full of potential, but you wait the entire film for the massive payoff with this talented cast that never comes. All the fabulous cinematography and set pieces Burton creates cannot save what is essentially an uneven and not funny enough comedy. When the credits finally rolled, I turned to the missus and said, “Well…that was a movie.”
Avoid the curse of Dark Shadows.
