Dark Shadows (Filthsposition)
by deerinthexenonarclights
(This is a guest review from my friend Filth, who you may now know for his thoughts on Game of Thrones. Here he has made his way into talking about movies too because like one of this films characters he had a sudden need to get his claws out. Enjoy.)
Let’s cut right to the point- I honestly believe that this is the worst movie I’ve seen in years. I think this is easily the worst film Tim Burton has ever directed, and I think this should be studied in Film School as an example of what NOT to do when making a movie. Here’s why:
* It can’t decide what genre it wants to be- It halfheartedly tries to be a drama, then halfheartedly tries to be a comedy, then a horror, a romance, a parody, etc. It just commits to a tone or a genre. It’s incredibly unwieldy and unfocused. A truly great film like, say, Shaun of the Dead, can deftly balance many tones and genres, but Dark Shadows is hopeless at that. It just comes across as a movie with an identity crisis that wants to be all things to all people but ends up being a big pile of nothing. It needed to more clearly define what it wanted to achieve.
* There is no urgency or suspense- The thing moves along without any sense of forward momentum. There is no feeling of gradually increasing stakes or tension or danger. The villain mostly just wants to hang out and talk endlessly about nothing. The scenes are a series of disjointed vignettes that don’t flow together the way a narrative should. The vast majority of these scenes are of one person talking to another very slowly, with minimal music or cinematic flair. The camera just holding still on these character as they talk endlessly about nothing. The way it is filmed is so incredibly lacking in energy and so totally void of any sense of being cinematic. Everyone and everything in this is on autopilot.
* The whole thing is just so goddamn uneven- The set design is awesome. Some of the visual stuff is fantastic (but some of it is terrible). The cast is fun (but they don’t get any good characters or dialogue to sink their teeth into). There are some really beautiful women in it (but the same could be said for a lot of things that are actually good).
There are some cool ideas (on a visual level I adored the shot of the female lead accompanied by the ghost in the asylum and in the diner) but like everything in the film none of them really get off the ground. There are some amusing jokes (but there are many painfully unfunny ones). Some of the subplots seemed like they would potential (but are then abandoned randomly).
* It’s just not watchable- I don’t care how poorly executed a movie is as long as it has a sense of watchability. Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, for example, is a BULLSH*T movie, ranked on IMDB’s list of the worst films ever made, and yet I watch it again and again because it doesn’t bore me. It’s crap, and I KNOW it’s crap, but it doesn’t bore me for one second. I enjoy it’s crappiness. A bit like Freddy VS Jason. I f*cking love that movie. I’ve seen it at least a dozen times. If Dark Shadows was gonna be crap, it should at least be a guilty pleasure, or so-bad-it’s-good or something. But this is just so-bad-that-it’s-really-embarrassing-watching-it.
… Look, there’s a billion other things I could talk about, but I’m just gonna stop here. This is a SH*T movie. Like, I don’t know if ‘Deer’ would agree with me on just HOW bad it was, but for me this wasn’t just an ordinary bad movie. It went on to indeed being one of the least engaging movies I’ve sat through start-to-finish in a cinema in years. So bad that I would’ve walked out if I had been watching it alone. And it sucks, cos I LOVE the premise, I LOVE the whole “The Addams Family” vibe, I LOVE a lot of the set design. But these elements are put into a film which is just such a total non-starter. It’s just a goddamn shame.
I really hope the upcoming Frankenweenie reboot is a return to form for Tim Burton, because he has down some really cool films before. A lot of critics are using this to retroactively attack all of Burton’s work over the past decade, but all of that stuff (even Alice in Wonderland) is so much easier to swallow than this film, in my opinion.
- One Star
Tim Burton has seemed so lost the last 10 years. Occasionally he’ll put out something decent but Planet of the Apes – painful to watch, Charlie & the Chocolate Factory- totally unnecessary, Alice in Wonderland – a nonentity, and then this. I hope he stops it with the reimaginings.
My line “It just commits to a tone or a genre.” should have been “It just NEVER commits to a tone or a genre”. Probably obvious enough. I hate when I do sh*t like that though.
For the record, I found Planet of the Apes weak, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was inferior to the original but had some great elements, Alice in Wonderland was forgettable but at least mildly entertaining.
All are leagues above Dark Shadows, in my opinion. I found this movie so poorly-done that I can’t decide whether I want to desperately steer people away from it, or try to get as many people as I can to go see it for the experience. Because it certainly is an experience.
Well when you’ve seen Ed Wood you’ll understand what I mean when I say that this is no Plan 9, that was at least a picture made with passion. This? eh…
I somewhat agree with this. I enjoyed the movie overall, specifically Depp and Green. The screenplay, however, sucked. The story between Depp’s character and the Victoria character seemed to be on-again and off-again. Victoria led us to the house, then conveniently just stopped progressing her story until much later in the film.
Green’s character was pleasant and Depp provided some excellent comedic relief at just the right times. The rest of the characters didn’t really develop beyond their introductions. This isn’t the fault of the actors, more the fault of the screenplay.
Perhaps the biggest gaffe was the daughter’s reveal at the very end of the movie that she was a werewolf, with absolutely no foreshadowing or relevance.
3.5/5 at best. Anyway, nice review.
Yeah, I could imagine the werewolf reveal working under the hand of someone like Edgar Wright. Even without any added foreshadowing or relevance, I suspect that he’d know how to somehow make it work. Whereas here it seemed like it didn’t know whether it was trying to be a random throwaway gag or a serious dramatic twist, so it just fell flat. It seemed confused as to what it was aiming for so it had no chance of achieving it, much like almost every single scene in the film. And therefore, the werewolf reveal just seemed flat and ludicrous.
I’d really love for someone who is a far better writer than I am to give a 10,000 essay on all of the MANY, MANY mistakes this film makes. I would have an absolute ball reading that.
Even things like Barnabas Collins getting imprisoned again too easily in Act 3, before then immediately escaping far too easily, and then going on to stand around doing nothing while special effects surround him without any sense of rhyme or action in the “climactic showdown”. Just almost every single moment of this film was mishandled.
I don’t know whether I want to stop talking about it and put it behind me, or to watch it again and then whinge some more! Maybe I should just go watch Beetlejuice or Ed Wood for the first time instead (I hear they’re actually great), and then come back without something actually good to say about Tim Burton. I really hope he one day makes a fantastic movie again.
PS. And it will just go without saying from now on- Please forgive the typos. I shouldn’t underestimate the intelligence of you all though, I’m sure you can always figure out what I mean to say.
Funny at times, but could have been so much funnier if Burton just put more thought into it. Instead, it just came off as a lazy attempt at bringing back one of his favorite shows as a little tike. Nothing special but not terrible. Good review.
I totally agree with you! I can’t believe how many people find this movie not only watchable but they claim it was “funny at times”..like 2 times maybe…
While Johnny Depp is awesome he never really gets to do anything awesome so who cares…and it’s a pretty movie but we all know Burton can make anything over with his aesthetic.
I thought it was so bad I wandered around the rest of the day crying out why? why? Why did I see that…why did the studios release something so damaging to so many reputations?
I believe amateur critics ought to examine this before they write any more reviews about just what is a watchable vs. a horrible movie. hehe
Great review! Cheers
Hah, it may well go down in film history as a fraught example of what not to do, but I hear you about those that disagree.
Depp and Burton have these fans though that will defend the pair to their deaths no matter how ire their output becomes, similair to how people defend Twilight/Beiber/etc. as being anything but bad art. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that all three of those products share the same target audience either. These people are praising it, but all of us amateur critics and the mainstream movie goers alike seem to abhor it, so there is some justice it seems.
It’s just a shame that they can’t share that devotion with something more deserving, or that Depp and Burton can’t earn the rights to it back. Maybe they will?