Movies: Dark Shadows

Score:  ** out of *****


Long Story Short:  An impressive cast and tempting trailers are all that's good about this "horror/comedy" mess.  The plot picks up threads and then unceremoniously drops them off, going instead for pointless and strange tangents.  There's little comedy here, or horror, either, but plenty of head-scratching.  Avoid.




For my next film of the summer, I chose Dark Shadows, a horror comedy (at least, according to Wikipedia).  I was amused by the ads for the film, and, although it got mostly mediocre reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, I thought it would be worth a try.  Also, it would give me the chance to review a film of a different genre than usual.  Dark Shadows was directed by Tim Burton and stars his usual partner in crime Johnny Depp, along with Eva Green, Michelle Pfeiffer, and others.


Dark Shadows begins with a history of the Collins, a wealthy English family that settled in Maine in the mid-1700s and developed a successful fishing company, around which the town of Collinsport grew.  Mr. and Mrs. Collins' son Barnabas (Depp) spurned one of his family's servants, Angelique (Green), who unfortunately was a witch.  In revenge, Angelique tore the family apart and finally turned Barnabas into a vampire before burying him in the woods.  In the present day, a young woman comes to the now-decrepit Collins manor desperate for a job (governess of the extended family's youngest son).  Here she meets head of the estate Elizabeth (Pfeiffer); her obnoxious teen daughter Carolyn (Chloe Moretz); brother Roger and his young son; psychiatrist Dr. Hoffman (Helena Bonham Carter); and the family's two servants.


A construction crew shortly thereafter unearths Barnabas, freeing him.  He returns to Collins manor and, although he reveals his true identity to Elizabeth, begins life anew as a "distant English relative" come to restore the family's business and prestige.  This he does, but he also attracts the attention of Angelique, whose own business had supplanted the Collins'.  Angelique becomes determined to possess Barnabas once again, forcing him to deal with her and yet keep his true identity secret.


Dark Shadows has a great cast; it's too bad that the film wastes their talents.  Johnny Depp plays the main character, Barnabas the vampire.  From the commercials/trailers, it seemed his role would be a humorous one; swap drunken pirate for aristocratic vampire.  Depp pulls off the calm confidence and demeanor of his character pretty well, but there's very little humor in it and not much substance to the character, either.  Eva Green does alright as the witch Angelique, alternatively both insane and seductive.  Her part is a bit off the deep end, though.  Michelle Pfeiffer is a believable, strong head of the household but she gets little screen time or variety.  Helena Bonham Carter is clearly bored with her role, and understandably so as it's a generic one, albeit with an inexplicable, absurd plot twist.  Jackie Earle Haley is perhaps one of the film's few bright spots as one of the cantankerous servants.  Chloe Grace Moretz plays an uncomfortably sultry, over-the-top brat.  And so on.


This film is pretty much a disaster.  The plot starts off alright, if rather cliche, but doesn't take long before it just careens off the tracks, never to recover.  It jumps all over the place.  Just when you think that one thread will be a major storyline (particularly the new governess), the film suddenly drops it save a word here or there until much later.  Then other mini- (and dumb) plot lines crop up (particularly concerning Roger and Dr. Hoffman) with little to no explanation or purpose.  As I've mentioned, the trailer's promise of comedy is greatly, greatly exaggerated (in fact, I'd recommend watching the trailer and skipping the film).  There's not really any horror, either, just a few somewhat gross scenes where Barnabas decides to stop acting like a British gentleman and indulge in his vampirism.  A few scenes of action and one "love" scene are all ludicrously done and boring.  I didn't notice the score.


***


As you saw with my score at the top of this review, this is indeed the worst film I have seen since I started my blog.  Interesting comparison with Rise of the Planet of the Apes:  while both had very deceptive marketing campaigns, Apes turned out much better than its marketing, and Shadows much worse.  Quite simply, there is just nothing worth seeing in this film.  It tries to do so many different things - the plot being nicely symbolic of this - and ends up doing, impressively, none of it well at all.  I have to admit, it's kind of fun to write this kind of review, and easier than describing the accolades of good films.  Hopefully, though, it's one of the few of its kind I have to write.  Not recommended, unless you are a 100% completist Burton-Depp fanatic.