Yet Another "Dark Shadows" Review

Gothic Director Tim Burton teams up with Johnny Depp once again to  resurrect an old supernatural soap, but can they breathe new life into the old Melodrama?

In the mid-18th Century rich playboy Barnabus Collins (Johnny Depp) has everything he could ever want: loving parents, lots of money, a flurry of beautiful conquests and a big, big house.  When he spurns the attention of beautiful-but-deadly witch Angelique (Eva Green) she murders his parents, drives his true love to suicide and, to top it all off, curses him to live an undead life of vampirism. Nice.  The townspeople, afraid of the monster who now lives at Collinwood Estate, for the obligatory lynch-mob and bury him forever(ish).

Cut to *ahem* "Present Day" 1972. Maggie Evans (Bella Heathcote) heads to the town of Collinsport, fleeing a mysterious past.  She assumes a false name and arrives at Collinwood, still home to the Collins family where she meets with head of household Elizabeth Collins (Michelle Pfeiffer) who takes her on a tour of the mansion, introducing Maggie to her feisty daughter Carolyn (Chloe Grace Moretz), her layabout brother Roger (Johnny Lee Miller) and his troubled, loner son (hey, it is a Tim Burton film) David (Gulliver McGrath). Live-in Therapist Dr. Julia Hoffman (Helena Bonham Carter) and oddball caretaker Willie (Jackie Earle Haley) round out the household.  Miraculously that very night the undead Barnabus escapes his prison and makes his way back to Collinwood.  He sees the family in disrepair and vows to restore their name to it's former glory, destroying the immortal witch Angelique in the process.

Dark Shadows isn't a terrible movie. It certainly isn't Burton's worst, but it isn't his best either.  Not by a country mile.  It suffers partially from the same issues as American Reunion in that, for a comedy, it just isn't that funny.  There are some humorous moments but the Laugh-O-Meter* never rises above "warm chuckle".  Coupled with this is the fact that the film seems to take some time in deciding exactly what genre it is.  The prologue is suitably melodramatic, harking back to the movie's Soap Opera roots, but when Barnabus returns the tone takes a U-turn towards comedy.

Attempting to emulate the Soap Opera formula also means that there is just too much going on in this movie.  Johnny Lee Miller's role doesn't really bring anything to the movie, his character could easily have been written out completely.  The same can be said of Helena Bonham Carter's role.  Sorry Mrs.Burton but there is no room for you in this movie.  To top it all off, a third act development for Chloe Moretz's Carolyn feels completely shoehorned in.  Because of everything else that was going on Maggie/Victoria - who began the movie as a strong PoV character - ends up being side-lined, meaning the movie loses any sympathetic resonance with the audience.  It also means that the romance between her and Barnabus feels a little forced.

Though deeply flawed, the movie isn't a total disaster: the performances are all top-notch (though Eva Greens "American" accent is a little suspect) and the film is, for the most part, enjoyable.  Depp's Barnabus is wonderfully OTT in his "stiff upper-lip" English-ness, and he clearly owes a debt of gratitude to Max Schreck's performance as Count Orlok in "Nosferatu".  Fans of Burton and Depp should definitely watch this movie, just don't expect greatness.

The Good: A sequence featuring some Alice Cooper confusion is a definite stand-out moment.

The Bad: Making Barnabus Collins the focal point was a huge mistake: Like Jack Sparrow he would have been better used as a "force of nature" rather than a leading man in his own right.

The Ugly: Bella Heathcote is certainly striking, and a typical "Tim Burton" beauty, but doesn't she look eerily like the Corpse Bride in her final scene?

*NB not a real Laugh-O-Meter

Yet Another “The Cabin in the Woods” review.

Five Teenagers head to a creepy Cabin in the Woods. “Jock” Curt (Chris Hemsworth), “innocent” Dana (Kristen Connolly), “sensitive” Holden (Jesse Williams), “promiscuous” Jules (Anna Hutchinson) and “stoner” Marty (Fran Kranz) soon find themselves fighting for survival.  Sounds familiar? Think again…

Let me start by warning you, this is really a film that has to be seen without any knowledge of what is coming, and so I won’t be providing any kind of detailed synopsis.  With a film filled with as many twists and turns as this one has it would be impossible to keep any synopsis spoiler-free.

First and foremost, “The Cabin in the Woods” is not a Horror movie, not really.  Anyone hoping to see ninety+ minutes of guts (yuck!), shocks (Jesus!) and boobs (Wahey!) may come away a little disappointed.  While the movie does feature all of these tropes and more, that really isn’t the point of it all.  It’s really more of an essay on Horror movies than anything else: deftly deconstructing the genre - picking apart the flaws and the clichés and putting them back together with a knowing smile and a wink - more meta fiction than fiction proper. That’s not to say it isn’t enjoyable, it very much is.

After a brief opening scene that sets up mysterious-yet-humorous technicians Sitterson and Hadley (played by the brilliant Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford, respectively) it’s very much business as usual for the next twentyish minutes: the Protagonists are set up swiftly and nicely before setting off on their adventure without a care in the world, until they meet a creepy, redneck Gas attendant in the middle of nowhere who fills everyone with plenty of pant-filling dread before pointing the way to the Teens’ final destination.  So far, so “The Hills Have Eyes”, right?  They reach their home for the weekend – an Evil Dead Cabin-copycat – and step inside, and the predictability of the movie grinds to a halt… To reveal anymore would be doing you a disservice, but believe me when I say that most of what follows will have you alternately thinking “WTF?!” and “Oh, I see!”

Anybody in his or her right mind should know the name of co-writer Joss Whedon, but it’s the authorial voice of collaborator Drew Goddard (who also Directs) that can be most strongly heard.  As the screenwriter of Cloverfield it’s pretty obvious he has the chops for writing horror, but here it seems more like he’s channelling his work from Whedon’s “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” where it’s humour that plays a more prominent role.  A lot of Horror Movies tend to throw in a bit of humour to relieve the tension - and to wrong-foot the audience into a false sense of security - before smacking them in the face with a trouser-wetting scare and this is where, for me, this movie falls a little flat. Not because it isn’t funny, but because it is so funny that the horror seems less scary.

The principle cast all perform well, but the movie really belongs to the comic relief: loveable-stoner Marty (played wonderfully by Fran Kranz, who was also the comic relief in Joss Whedon’s short-lived TV series “Dollhouse”) and the Lab-Technician duo, played by Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford.

Overall, the movie was a success. What it lacks in horror it more than makes up for in humour, intelligence and sheer originality.

The Good: The way the Japanese Schoolchildren deal with their problem had me in stitches.

The Bad: The “Big Twist” was so obvious I thought there was sure to be another (message me if you want to know what my theory was, it’s a doozy).  There wasn’t, but once you come to terms with that the movie still works.

The Ugly: Ballerina. ‘Nuff said.