Dark Shadows (2012)
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Dark Shadows Movie Review
Dark Shadows is a 2012 period fantasy comedy film directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp among others. It’s a messy, but undeniably fun excursion.
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“Are you stoned or something?
They tried stoning me, my dear.
It did not work“
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Being based on a famous Gothic soap opera of course this movie was going to be very sappy and ridiculous in its storyline and that is exactly what we got here. Yes, some of its procedures and plot twists are interesting, but for the most part the movie featured way too many characters, plot details, reveals and interrelationships that it eventually all crumbled upon itself unfortunately.
I personally really liked Johnny Depp’s turn here. Yes, he’s turned into a caricature by now and of course he’s played this type of character many times before, but still undeniably he was the best person for this job and he delivered in spades. His comedic delivery is pitch-perfect and he gives us most of the film’s best humor and quirks. And this vampire character is also simply a lot of fun and the most interesting character in the entire film.
Michelle Pfeiffer is very good, but I expected more screen time for her character, though she’s still rather solid. Eva Green’s villain is very silly, but it works in the context of the film’s jokey tone and I found the relationship between her and Barnabas somewhat amusing. Bella Heathcote’s character unfortunately did not work at all. I found that romance rather lacking, bland and dull plus the character was simply very underutilized.
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Again, the movie had a lot of potential in all of its characters and they aren’t badly developed at all, but they just did not get the screen time that they deserved as this ensemble was simply too huge for the film. Helena Bonham Carter in particular was shamelessly underused while all the other male characters apart from the protagonist are very forgettable. I did like Chloe Grace Moretz though, but the twist with her did not work as well owing to a silly-looking creature design.
Dark Shadows is tonally one giant mess. It tries to be a horror flick and it fails spectacularly in that regard despite its great atmosphere. It tries to be a Gothic fantasy and only mildly succeeds at that. And it tries to be a comedy and in my opinion that’s where the movie strove the most as the humor is very strong with the mix of silly one-liners and the situational comedy with the man stuck in a different time period being very well mined for laughs.
I did find the sexual sequences overdone and ridiculous. The soapy elements are easily the worst here as they always are. But the dialogue is pretty good in my opinion and the acting is strong across the board with the movie having an enormous ensemble with many stars in it. I just wanted a bigger mystery to it and more details in its plot, though the ones that we got are quite solid.
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Dark Shadows looks stunning, there is no denying that. The imagery is powerful, the atmosphere is striking and the movie made use of its Gothic sensibilities superbly with the production design being particularly arresting. I wish that the direction, the score and the storytelling accompanying the visuals were much stronger. The movie is thus not bad in my opinion, but far from the director’s best obviously.
Dark Shadows is one giant mess of a movie, especially tonally as it never knows what it wants to be in terms of its genres. In my opinion it succeeded the most at being a comedy as the concept of a man stuck in a different time period was so well mined for laughs and Johnny Depp is very funny here. But in terms of horror and fantasy, it failed quite a lot. The characters are solid, but because there were so many of them, most were left underutilized. The score, direction and storytelling are lacking, but the acting and visuals are quite strong. So it’s not the worst film Tim Burton has done as it’s a lot of fun, but it’s certainly far from his best works.
