Review No.81: Dark Shadows

I don't know if there's some sort of support group but I would like to stand-up proud and say that I'm a Tim Burton fan. I in fact wrote my undergraduate dissertation about him some eight years ago now but then was back in a time where he had done little wrong with the possible exception of the Planet of the Apes remake. Since then he's destroyed two of my favourite childhood tales, Willy Wonka and Alice in Wonderland, and has seemingly become obsessed with Johnny Depp. There's no surprise that both Depp and Burton's wife Helena Bonham Carter star in his latest film Dark Shadows in which the former plays a vampire who wakes two centuries after he was cursed by a witch and locked in a coffin. Depp's Barnabus Collins is in fact the heir to an English family who set-up a fishery business in Maine naming the town - Collinsport after themselves while spoiling their son. When he trifles with the affections of the working class Angelique, played by Eva Green, she puts on him said curse which lasts for 200 years until he is dug up by workmen in 1972 who are then all killed by him. Though the 1970s Collinsport is decidedly different now it is run by Angelique while the remaining family members are an odd bunch bickering among themselves more than anything else. There's Michelle Pfeiffer's matriarch Elizabeth who greets everybody by standing at the top of the long winding staircase of the family mansion then there's her 15 year old daughter Carolyn played by Chloe Moretz who wears a constant scowl on her face as she argues with her mother. Elizabeth's brother Roger is a womanising thief who cares little that his son David is being haunted by visions of his dead mother and finally there is Carter's Dr Hoffman an alcoholic psychologist who was hired three years ago to try and help David get over his mum's passing but hasn't helped just yet. When Barnabus returns he falls for the David's nanny Victoria but he also has to deal with the fact that Angelique is still after him and his family so he decides to repair their reputation by doing their house before organising a ball which features Alice Cooper as the main attraction. The final twenty or so minutes are where everything comes to a head, truths are told and a large battle wages between the major characters.

After the critically-derided Alice in Wonderland the Burton-Depp team really needed a hit and while Dark Shadows isn't necessarily that hit it still has enough good ideas to justify Burton's reputation as a decent director. There are some fairly decent jokes in the film though they aren't really produced by the 'vampire tries to adjust to the 1970s' plot that the trailer would have you believe but instead they come out through the characters. Both Green and Carter's turns allow them to amp up the crazy in different ways creating laughs through the characters' mannerisms more than anything else while Jackie Earle Hayley as handyman Willy also gets in a few decent laughs. For me one of the best comic turns comes from Ray Shirley as the family's decrepit maid who is constantly unaware of what is going on around her which in itself is fairly amusing. I also thought that Moretz excelled as the stroppy teenager, albeit one with a secret, her constant scowling and puzzled expressions really put across someone who really didn't want to be trapped in a small town. And indeed the town of Collinsport is well-designed because, as you would expect from a Burton film, everything looks particularly strange and gothic especially the Collins family manor Collinswood. The problems for me were that we've seen Depp in this role too many times before and I felt it would be better if the director had let another star have a go at being the leading man in one of his films. Not that he's particularly bad at it it's just that I felt a little tired watching Depp doing his faux English accent trotting around and spouting out the witticisms. I also felt that there was far too many tonal shifts as the film starts in an extremely dark place before becoming comic and then going really mad in the final scenes. There's also the issue of the 1970s setting which I forgot about until Carolynn started playing a record by T-Rex or referencing The Carpenters while I do appreciate that the nostalgia is in part a homage to the original TV series of the same name I considered it to be a gimmick that really wasn't needed. Of all of Burton's films I feel this is closest to Mars Attacks as it has that nostalgic element, obviously references something the director loves, has its moments but is ultimately all over the place though as a fan of the man's work I still really enjoyed it.

Verdict: While Dark Shadows may not be the return to form us Burton fans had anticipated this is still crazy enough to remind us of his films of old despite the many shifts in a tone and a samey performance from Depp I will give this a very generous 7/10