Dark Shadows

I was not particularly looking forward to seeing this film. The concept seemed trite and the humour in the trailer was painfully unfunny. I have never seen the cult soap opera, which apparently didn’t introduce any supernatural elements for the first six months of its run, so came without any nostalgic feelings there, and had even forgotten about its existence until friends suggested we went to see it.

So I had low expectations – and it’s likely for that reason I didn’t find the film too abhorrent. I would not say it was good, but it was nowhere near as terrible as many have made out – it was mediocre to adequate, worth a single watch, but never made it to the territory of ‘good’. It was very much like late-80s Burton, but without the idiosyncratic spark. In short, it felt like an inadequate attempt to emulate rather than what it could have been – quintessential Burton.

The basic plot is that a rich young man named Barnabus Collins is cursed by a jealous witch to be a vampire. When she still cannot win his love after murdering his lover (funny that), she locks him in a coffin for almost 200 years, until he is finally dug up in the 70s. Emerging as the classic blood-sucking, pale, undying, burning-in-sunlight, pointy-toothed vampire, he joins his descendants without fitting in. He doesn’t have the winsome, awkward charm of an Edward Scissorhands, though, rather taking charge of the family business and trying to improve the lives of the children. Of course, the rival company who has forced the Collins into near-ruin is run by the witch, and things soon come to a head. Throw in every woman in the piece falling for Barnabus, additional complications from vampires and ghosts and a gig by Alice Cooper and you have a very, very campy vampire story. If the set-up of a very strange supernatural personality forcing his way in amongst a family sounds very Beetlejuice, though, it’s unfortunately never as crazy nor as funny – though the humour is certainly a lot better than it looked to be in the trailer: with context, the jokes are much more amusing and less obvious.

The two main strengths of the film are its aesthetic – genuinely beautiful most of the time, and hilariously schlocky most of the rest – and its cast. Of course Depp and Bonham-Carter are present and correct, doing their usual job of overacting in the right place, but there are more interesting choices: Michelle Pfeiffer’s transition from beauty to matriarch is to be taken more seriously after this, and Eva Green from The Golden Compass was compelling in the over-the-top role. Misfires, though, were Christopher Lee in a vampire film cameo that felt very lazy indeed (especially as he didn’t even use an American accent) and the girl from Kick-Ass and Hugo as a two-dimensional grumpy teen. That said, her presence led to some of the film’s bigger laughs. Her final reveal would have been better left out of the script, though, especially as it was part of a particularly soulless CG-fest that made me long for the more inventive effects of Beetlejuice.

The humour can only go so far, though, and the end all gets wrapped up a bit too glibly – so after admitting to his numerous murders, what can Barnubus do now with his new partner for all time? But this film is a superficial and silly one, and works best considered that way. The trouble is that a Tim Burton film used to mean campy, silly, supernatural – but also fantastic. Sadly, that hasn’t quite been the case for a long while. I haven’t wholeheartedly enjoyed a Tim Burton film since Big Fish, and even that was no critical darling. I think it’s time for him to do another Ed Wood. Another clever and intimate film to make him respected again. That or get Neil Gaiman to write him a script.