“Dark Shadows” marks the eighth collaboration between celebrated director Burton and Hollywood megastar Johnny Depp, whose long-time professional partnership was sparked in 1990 with the enchanting fairy tale romance “Edward Scissorhands.” We can always expect two things from their projects together: a solid, transformative performance from Depp, and a technical masterclass from Burton. “Dark Shadows” certainly supplies both by the truckload, but supplies little of anything else, leaving one feeling dissatisfied, underwhelmed and yearning for more.
In “Dark Shadows," Depp is playing a vampire. This marks the first time he has ever played a bloodsucking creature of the night, which I find peculiar: considering his always-commanding screen presence, curiously youthful looks and almost supernatural charm, one wonders why it has taken so long for his career to bring him a vampiric role. As evidenced here, he fits such a role more than splendidly, like Christopher Lee did Count Dracula, and Max Schreck did Count Orlok.
Depp’s vampire is Barnabas Collins, who is turned into a monster not by a bite or genetic inheritance, but by a vicious curse. In a stirring prologue, we witness young Barnabas sail from Liverpool, England with his mother and father to America in 1760, where they create a wealthy fishing dynasty and erect a grand manor atop a hill above Collinsport, a quiet coastal town in Maine founded by the family. Young Barnabas grows up in Collinwood Manor to become a roguish playboy. He embarks upon a torrid affair with a housemaid, Angelique (Eva Green, “Casino Royale”), but falls in love with a beautiful, angelic young lady named Josette (Bella Heathcote, “In Time”).
Enraged with jealousy, a heartbroken Angelique (who is a witch, I might add) casts a spell upon Josette that causes her to leap off a cliff and fall to her death as Barnabas watches, helpless. Surviving the same fall, a grief-stricken and suicidal Barnabas discovers to his horror that he has been cursed by Angelique to forever walk the Earth as a soulless vampire. Only Angelique doesn’t want him walking around: she promptly leads a pack of pitchfork-wielding townsfolk to Collinwood Manor and has Barnabas chained up, placed inside a coffin and buried underground. Women, right?
Cut to almost two centuries later, to a time of bell-bottoms, Volkswagen hippie vans, disco-dancing, The Carpenters and troll dolls. The year is 1972, and the Collins family business is a hollow shell of its glory days. Elizabeth Collins (Michelle Pfeiffer, “Stardust”) presides over the Collinwood Manor household, which includes her sour-faced 15-year-old daughter Carolyn (Chloë Grace Moretz, “Hugo”), troubled 10-year-old nephew David (Gulliver McGrath), philandering brother Roger (Johnny Lee Miller, “Trainspotting”), cranky caretaker Willy (Jackie Earle Haley, “A Nightmare on Elm Street”) and drunken live-in psychiatrist Dr. Julia Hoffman (Burton’s squeeze, Helena Bonham Carter).
To say they’re dysfunctional would be an understatement, but their dysfunctionality is about to get a whole lot worse. Barnabas, still helplessly trapped in his coffin, is by pure chance discovered by a group of unwitting construction workers, who free him from his horribly cramped prison and are quickly drained of their blood. “You can’t imagine how thirsty I am,” proclaims Barnabas. Claiming to be a distant relative from England, Barnabas is taken in by his misfit descendants and soon becomes determined to restore the Collins family business to its former glory. Trouble is, the company’s main competition is a fellow fishing corporation owned by none other than Angelique, who hasn’t aged a day and is none too happy about Barnabas’ lucky escape.
The primary joke of “Dark Shadows” is that Barnabas, an 18th-century man/vampire of high class, is tragically out of place in a world of Chevies, doobies, rollerskates and Scooby-Doo. His fascination upon seeing his first lava lamp is priceless, as is his bafflement upon seeing Karen Carpenter on the family tube, a sight he confuses for a “tiny songstress” trapped inside a wooden box by way of sorcery. Indeed, there’s much rib-tickling amusement to be had from this vampire-out-of-time formula, but it’s difficult to shake the feeling that all of it isn’t just “Austin Powers” adjusted to fit the Tim Burton mould - instead of “You’re shagadelic, baby,” we have, “What fertile birthing hips you have,” which lessens in hilarity after its umpteenth utterance.
You might not be aware of this, but “Dark Shadows” is based on a gothic horror soap opera broadcast onto American television screens from 1966 through to 1971. Famed for its shoddy production values, the show still enjoys a dedicated cult following, of which Burton and Depp are proud members. The show’s influence on the film is rather noticeable, particularly in the second half, as the plot becomes increasingly unwieldy and gives way to the kind of soap opera melodrama that can be found in any episode of “Coronation Street” or “Eastenders,” only here there be witches, vampires and even a werewolf prowling about. Oh, and a ghost; I forgot about that.
Teenager Carolyn rebels against her mother and Roger turns out to be a greedy thief who cares not for his son; Barnabas and Angelique, in spite of their passionate loathing for one another, enjoy a kinky, office-destroying sex session that rivals that of “Breaking Dawn - Part 1,” albeit actually played for laughs here. There’s even a bloodless love story shared between Barnabas and Victoria Winters (also Heathcote), the new governess and eerie doppleganger of Barnabas’ lost love, Josette. I say bloodless because Victoria almost completely disappears from the story once Barnabas sets eyes on her, only to reappear during the CGI-laden, action-packed climax for an inevitable faux-emotional payoff.
Seth Grahame-Smith’s dialogue has a certain bite to it, but it’s the plot that really requires the fangs. Grahame-Smith’s handling of the story is clumsy and incoherent, reducing the film to a disjointed muddle bereft of a narrative drive and littered with scenes that serve no discernable purpose. I said earlier that the film is a Frankenstein’s Monster; I meant this not just in terms of plot, but also in terms of tone. Sometimes “Dark Shadows” is a comedy, sometimes it’s a romance, sometimes it’s an actioner and sometimes it’s a horror. It struggles to find a balance between the four and never sticks to a pleasing rhythm, consequently winding up a confused, indecisive mess that can’t even make its mind up over whether its neck-gnawing protagonist is a murderous monster or a loveable weirdo.
What “Dark Shadows” has in its favour are, as I said before, the two things we’ve routinely come to expect from a Burton-Depp team-up. Depp sinks his teeth into the role of Barnabas and delivers a comically courteous furniture-fondling performance suitable for pantomime, all while flaunting a greasy dark fringe, an impossibly pale complexion, and bony, taloned digits that call to mind the aforementioned Count Orlok. Burton epitomises his trademark gothic aesthetic, filling “Dark Shadows” with pasty-faces and cobweb-riddled architecture, all captured through lavish camerawork, which this time isn’t spoiled by dodgy 3D, as it was in his last cinematic outing, Disney’s “Alice in Wonderland.”
But a scenery-chewing leading performance and extravagant production design aren’t quite enough to compensate for the troubles of all else contained within “Dark Shadows,” which is generally enjoyable while it lasts but quickly crumbles and festers in retrospect. Ultimately, it’s a Frankenstein’s Monster with few of its pieces operating as they should. The comedy is not titillating enough; the romance is not bewitching enough; the action is not thrilling enough; and the horror is not scary enough. “Dark Shadows” may be as visually luxurious as Collinwood Manor, but with a jumbled script unable to find meat in its characters or blood in its story, it’s just as cold, empty, creaky and musty as it too.
5/10
I'm an avid Johnny Deep fan but I'm not really sure if this one is for him. :)
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