Written by / 5/11/2012 / No comments / , , , , , , , ,

DEPP & BURTON REMAKE DARK SHADOWS

2013 rating: **
DARK SHADOWS, based loosely on the strange and unique Dan Curtis soap opera of yesteryear, has a new generation’s Barnabas Collins played by Johnny Depp who, resembling Eddie Munster had he grown up to appear on The Beatles' Revolver cover, is given a simple choice: love a jealous witch or, after being turned into a Vampire, pay the consequences: That being a two-hundred-year burial where he wakes up in 1972 (a year after the original show went off the air): his colonial world having been transformed into hot rod cars and rock music.

The continuous gag of the newly awakened vamp’s dazed fascination with modern devices – from a television to a lava lamp – gets pretty tiresome. After the intriguing and rather spooky prologue followed by an ultraviolent massacre of those who awakened him, one might expect a more lethal antihero. And God knows Depp, lavishing the accent and prowess with his usual wily charm, deserves a darker ride. Playing a character that one-minute slaughters the innocent and the next is a lovable klutz, he seems a bit lost and incomplete. And director Tim Burton, a pioneer of mixing horror and comedy, is never quite sure which way to lean at the right moments.

Although our cunning antagonist Angelique Bouchard tries her best to sharpen those fangs with sexually driven rampage, this film remains a cartoon. Collins family members including Michelle Pfeiffer as the mansion mom and ChloĂ« Grace Moretzas a mopey teen daughter (with a dark secret of her own) add only filler dialog to the proceedings. While the lovely Bella Heathcote, as Barnabus’s love interest from both time periods and the character we follow into the modern story, is all but forgotten not long after the opening credits. And despite the abundance of murky downtime, the finale, as the family bands together to protect their home, is, like the prologue, quite entertaining. But mostly we have two neat looking bookends holding a dusty novel with empty pages.
Share This Post :
Tags : , , , , , , , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.

All Time Popular

Featured Post

DEFENDING THE BREEZY SEQUEL 'BREAKIN 2': ELECTRIC BOOGALOO'

Title: BREAKIN' 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO Year: 1984 Rating: *** Cannon Films' BREAKIN' 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO  was rushed out the same...

WWW.CULTFILMFREAKS.COM

WWW.CULTFILMFREAKS.COM
Movie Reviews, Interviews, Articles and Pop Culture from White Heat to Blue City

RIP ACTOR KEN HUTCHISON

TOTAL HITS

Popular Trending

FOUNDED BY JAMES M. TATE

FOUNDED BY JAMES M. TATE
RANDOM QUOTE: "Yeah, and the devil serves lemonade, right?" David Proval, Kojak

FILM NOIR & NEO NOIR CRIME

FAVORITES SHORTLIST

1)OTLEY 2)HELL IS A CITY 3)ROBBERY 4)THE FEARMAKERS 5)CANYON PASSAGE 6)VIOLENT SATURDAY 7)HOT CARS 8)THE BREAK 9)THE CROWDED SKY 10)THE ROARING TWENTIES 11) ANATOMY OF A MURDER 12)CALCULATED RISK 13)SWEENEY TWO 14)RAIDERS FROM BENEATH THE SEA 15)HARDCORE 16)JUNGLE STREET 17)WHITE HEAT 18)AL CAPONE 19)MODEL SHOP 20)FALLEN ANGEL 21)SHARKS' TREASURE 22)THE ASPHALT JUNGLE 23)ASH WEDNESDAY 24)THE SYSTEM 25)AIR PATROL 26)THE STONE KILLER 27)SANDS OF THE KALAHARI 28)WILLIAM CONRAD'S BRAINSTORM 29)RIOT 30)THE MAN FROM LARAMIE FAVORITE ACTORS 1)DANA ANDREWS 2)JAMES CAGNEY 3)STANLEY BAKER 4)MARLON BRANDO 5)JACK NICHOLSON 6)CHARLES BRONSON 7)BURT REYNOLDS 8)WILLIAM LUCAS 9)TOM COURTENAY 10)GENE HACKMAN DIRECTORS 1)JACQUES TOURNEUR 2)RICHARD FLEISCHER 3)VAL GUEST 4)STANLEY KUBRICK 5)OTTO PREMINGER 6)ORSON WELLES 7)JOHN GUILLERMAN 8)JOHN LANDIS 9)SAM PECKINPAH 10)MICHAEL WINNER

BRITISH NEW WAVE CINEMA

RARITIES AND EXPLOITATION

HAMMER HORROR & THRILLER

Popular This Month

CHARLES BRONSON CINEMA

CINEMA OF DANA ANDREWS

WESTERN GENRE REVIEWS

PEAKING INTO THE SIXTIES

KICKING IN THE EIGHTIES

TALES AND REFLECTIONS

REVVING THE SEVENTIES

Most Popular Last Year