BurningUp, I don't think that enlisting a different cast would have made a big difference with this movie. I do think that some improvements could have been made, but the overall flaw with this movie was horrible writing, sloppy, lazy directing (I will qualify that in a moment), and a meddling producer named Johnny Depp who was treating this project as more of a lingering childhood obsession with "being" Barnabas Collins. When you have a sloppy hack writer, a director who basically bows to all of the whims of the principal actor instead of acting as a manager, and an actor/producer who can't decide whether he wants to make an homage or a wacky farce, then you have three reasons that make this movie a sloppy mess.
It doesn't really matter who plays the roles in this movie. The writing was ham-fisted, opting for a scatterbrained and uneven mix of juvenile and wacky along with what the aforementioned three thought was scary. I agree with you that this movie should have been made more with the same tone with which the movie opened, and not with the galactically stupid fish-out-of-water vampire jokes. Despite the declarations made by fans of this movie and of Burton in general, this was most certainly NOT a "black comedy." It was an unfunny, unscary cow patty amalgam of fragments slapped together hoping to draw from multiple demographic groups. It was masquerading with the same name as the original. No amount of recasting would have compensated for that.
In this age of cinema where movies seem to be remade almost every decade or so, perhaps someone else will take on "Dark Shadows" and give it the respect that it was due. Burton's rendering was little more than Depp's chance to live out his childhood hangup of playing dress-up as one the his favorite characters. This was truly a pity. There were miniscule fragments in this movie which demonstrated what it could have been. The way they chose to go with it was very disappointing.
reply
share
BurningUp
10 years ago
Jdude, I agree with everything you said.
What I meant was that I wish Hollywood would do a proper movie with the same suspenseful elements that the TV show had. I didn't mean just replace the cast in the Burton film cause that was so jacked up that not even a better cast could have saved it.
"Everyone's entitled to one good scare."
reply
share
jdude35
10 years ago
BurningUp, When you say that you wish "Hollywood" would do a proper remake, I think that such would not happen in a manner that would satisfy many fans or render the proper respect that the series deserves. Hollywood films are first and foremost business products, driven by MBA wielding types who use statistics and graphs to drive their decisions. A Dark Shadows movie would stand a better chance as a production from an independent studio. Hollywood's first inclination would be to turn it into a sloppy, juvenile comedy. While Tim Burton and Johnny Depp claimed that this was "serious" it lapsed into the aforementioned on a number of occasions.
I have come to realize two things about Tim Burton. First, he has a habit of disregarding/not liking source material, preferring to paint a "re-envisioning" with his own brush, so to speak. The problem with this is Burton's production ends up like some uncontrollable Phtotoshop filter when it parses an image. You may not like what it does, however you are stuck with the results. The second thing that I have realized is that just because Burton claims to have "respect" for some kind of source material, that doesn't mean that what he does will look anything close to "respectful." Trying to be both scary/Gothic AND wacky/farcical is like giving someone a complement and then kicking them in the crotch right afterward and saying that you are being "respectful." You can't do BOTH at the same time and have it work. Burton's Dark Shadows is two different movies slapped together and bound with adhesive. The "explanation" that has been given for this effect is that this is a "black comedy." Sorry....no way. The only way that Dark Shadows will get a proper production is by having it done independently.
reply
share