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 Okay,
Johnny Depp, I know I said that we’d have to have a serious talk if your
next project after that last Pirates of the Caribbean movie wasn’t up to
snuff, but in this case, I believe we can make an exception. In what
seemed like a perfect project to be directed by your BFF, Tim Burton,
the big screen version of the late-sixties gothic soap opera, Dark
Shadows is so irredeemably awful that there’s no way I can blame you for
everything that is wrong about it. Indeed, the only reason to suffer
through this inept misfire is your on-point performance as the vampire,
Barnabas Collins.
At the
end of the seventeenth century, a family leaves the security of Old
Blighty to establish new roots in the New World. The Collins clan hopes
to increase their wealth by making the most of a fertile New England
seaside village. The fortune from the Collins fishing trade surpasses
all expectations and soon the very town and nearly everything in it
bears the family name. Master Barnabas, heir to the Collins’ empire,
takes advantage of all that his youth and position has to offer,
including the carnal delights of a lusty housemaid. Barnabas learns the
old adage about a woman scorned the hard way when the servant reveals
herself to be a powerful witch who takes revenge on the entire Collins
family, exacting an unimaginable punishment on the one who broke her
heart. Angelique won’t do something as simple and mundane as kill
Barnabas, oh no, that’s far too easy. Instead, she curses him to live
as a vampire, undead and bloodthirsty, and then leads of mob of
frightened townsfolk to bury him alive in the Collinsport woods, where
he remains for the next two centuries. While Barnabas has taken his
long slumber, the Collins family live on, more or less, with his
descendents still inhabiting Collinwood Manor and running the family
fishing business. The newest Collinses are a dysfunctional lot; the
mansion is a cobwebbed, dusty shadow of its former glory, and the
cannery hangs on by a thread due to some heavy competition. A
construction crew unearths the coffin where Barnabas was consigned and
thanks to the men’s refreshing blood supply, the young master returns
home at last, but not without noticing some unfamiliar oddities along
the way. A lot has changed around town in two hundred years, but
Barnabas greets the novelties with aplomb. His relatives aren’t quite
as affable and it’s only the vampire’s awareness of secret treasure
troves around Collinwood that induces strapped-for-cash family matriarch
Elizabeth to allow Barnabas to stay with the proviso that he never
reveals his undead tendencies. For all the changes around Collinsport,
there’s something that’s remained firmly in place; the other old family
in town is that of the Collins’ business rival, the latest in the line
being an attractive young woman called Angie who seems very familiar to
Barnabas. The combination of spell casting and an unending thirst for
revenge has been very good to the witch and she has seen to the slow
decline of the Collins brood. His clan and its good name mean
everything to Barnabas and so he vows to fight the sorceress and reclaim
the Collins family honour and fortune.
Trailers and TV spots in advance of the film did not look make Dark
Shadows look like a promising prospect. It seemed as if it would be a
fairly standard fish out of water comedy based around the Old World
vampire’s culture shock after suddenly being revived in 1972. I
expected a lot of quaint but predictable jokes about bellbottoms, afros
and the sexual revolution that would’ve shocked poor old Barnabas.
Would that I had been so fortunate. Dark Shadows isn’t funny enough to
be called a comedy and not remotely thrilling, dramatic or scary enough
to portray the original television show’s Hammer horror film leanings.
The movie has no idea what it wants to be and ends up being nothing;
just a gorgeous-looking mess of a film. The gothic visuals, including
and especially the overdone, underkept Collinwood Manor are as perfect
as one would expect from Hollywood’s King Goth, Tim Burton. The
omnipresent fog and half-lit silvertones that permeate the film are
completely his mien. If only as much attention had been paid to the
narrative: The script is all over the place; neither focusing on the
comedy aspect, nor on creating a creepy thriller. There’s no
development of the other characters’ backstories, which one wouldn’t
necessarily care about but for some inexplicable last minute plot
developments. Neither do we care about the romantic subplot between
Barnabas and a modern-day reincarnation of the woman he lost centuries
ago to Angelique’s evil spell. The film’s purportedly hilarious set
piece is a no-holds-barred, gravity-defying sex scene between the
reunited vampire and witch for a booty call that wrecks everything in
sight. The scene is so tiresome, unoriginal and drawn out that I
couldn’t wait for it to end. Dark Shadows is so desperately unfunny
that I actually hoped for some of those corny, anachronistic ‘Isn’t 1972
hilarious?’ jokes. Save for Depp’s quirking it up as the time-displaced
vamp, in trowel-thick white pancake and gray blusher, high collars,
velvets and Bela Lugosi-inspired hand gestures, many of the performances
are strangely listless. I was shocked at how low energy the usually
excellent Michelle Pfeiffer was as Elizabeth Collins, which is
unfortunate as there was the potential for some great scene-chewing
there. For the umpteenth time costarring in a Tim Burton movie, Mrs.
Burton, Helena Bonham Carter, plays a psychiatrist living in the estate,
supposedly to try to bring the family together. She doesn’t have much
to do playing the boozy, self-medicating opportunist, outside of trying
not to blind her costars with her hideous neon orange wig. What’s
uncomfortable is watching Eva Green make a go of the lusty, vengeful
Angelique when it seems that the character’s modeled at least
physically after Burton’s ex-girlfriend and muse, Lisa Marie. Green
normally looks a bit witchy and seems only too happy to show her
cleavage, so I don’t know how much of a stretch was involved in her
portrayal of the overheated enchantress. One gets the impression that
there was more to the characters played by Jonny Lee Miller as twitchy,
would-be playboy, Uncle Roger, and Chloë Grace Moretz as Carolyn,
Elizabeth’s sulky teenage daughter. Moretz starts off very promisingly
as the bratty Lolita on Quaaludes, playing her with all the campy gusto
one would wish from a Burton ingénue, and then is practically never
heard from again until much later. Dark Shadows is such a hot mess that
one can’t even write it off to Tim Burton’s occasionally shaggy
direction style. This was just bad. I can’t have that sit-down with
Johnny Depp over this one; it’d be like kicking someone when they’re
down. If there needs to be any type of conversation, perhaps Depp needs
to have a heart-to-heart with his buddy Burton about what’s become of
the filmmaker’s once peerless creative vision? Maybe he could throw in
a word about making better movies while he’s at it.
Quirky, campy, fun, weird, original; there are many adjectives I expect
to apply when speaking of a Tim Burton movie. The one descriptor I
never imagined using for any film from the director, which his Dark
Shadows is in abundance, is boring.
Bring
on Frankenweenie. Maybe it’ll help erase the memory of Dark Shadows.
~ The
Lady Miz Diva
May 11th,
2012
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