Plethora of Pop Movie Review
Dark Shadows
Starring Johnny Depp and Michelle Pfeiffer
Dark Shadows is a fantasy film released in 2012, based on the gothic television soap opera of the same name. Directed by Tim Burton, the film stars Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Helena Bonham Carter, Eva Green, Jackie Earle Haley, Jonny Lee Miller, Chloë Grace Moretz, and Bella Heathcote in a dual role.
Can I just say holy freakin’ cow? I’ve seen one movie since I moved back home in November 2015 and that was Dog which was released in 2022 and starred none other than Channing Tatum. My review on that one?
Meh. It was a movie.
Acceptable but predictable. I don’t know that I’ll ever get tired of looking at Channing sans a shirt so there’s that. But was it worth the cost of admission? No, not really but it got me out of the house so that was something.
But this. THIS. It has left me literally breathless. Other than the Twilight series I have never wanted to watch a movie more than once. Dark Shadows I rented on Prime for the steep, steep price of $2.99. I saw it somewhere else for $3.99
Let’s start with the playlist because it was as good as the movie.
Dark Shadows (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
- Nights In White Satin by The Moody Blues.
- Dark Shadows (Prologue)by Danny Elfman.
- I’m Sick Of You by Iggy Pop.
- Season Of The Witch by Donovan.
- Top Of The World by the Carpenters.
- You’re The First, The Last, My Everything by Barry White.
- Bang a Gong (Get It On) by T. Rex.
- No More Mr. Nice Guy by Alice Cooper.
- Ballad of Dwight Fry by Alice Cooper
- The End? by Danny Elfman
- The Joker by none other than Johnny Depp himself
If you have a Spotify account you can listen to the playlist here.
Feb 5, 2023
I started this review a week or so ago and got caught up in other stuff. Now I’ve had to watch it again to refresh my memory. 🙄 What’s another $2.99 between friends, eh? My only concern about watching it a second time was whether would it taint my original impression of the movie. I wanted that visceral gut reaction as suggested in the opening here.
I’m the kind of person you probably don’t want to go to the movies with.
“Hey. In the last scene, the dent was on the left side of the car and now it’s on the right! Now it’s on the left again! WTH?”
I’m that chick. Well, let me settle in with my HD headphones again and see what I come up with this time.
PS — watching it a second time didn’t screw up a single thing for me. My head was still bobbing to the music and I was still wishing I lived closer to JD.
Let’s begin with Johnny Depp’s voice. My God. And the accent too. Is it possible to be my age and swoon over a laptop because if so, I think I just did.
The premise of the movie is Depp’s character’s family leaves Liverpool in the 1700s and comes to what is to become America. His parents are killed almost straight off and so he is left to run the family home, a modest castle, and the family business that has now made them rich.
His parents didn’t just die. They were murdered by the curse of a witch. A witch that thought she was in love with Barnabas, Depp’s character, and felt the need to own him. But he did not love her and told her as much. The witch, Eva Green as Angelique “Angie” Bouchard, is magnificent in her role.
Then more tragedies ensue.
Angelique curses his beloved, Josette (played by Bella Heathcote), who then jumps from a cliff and into the Atlantic Ocean landing on the rocks below. Unable to bear the thought of living his life without her, Barnabas too jumps from the cliffs. He crashes onto the rocks below and lives. He turns around to see Angelique standing on the cliffs above. She has now cursed him by turning him into a vampire.
This was not enough for the diabolical one. No, my friends. Angelique then turns the townspeople on Barnabas and they place him in a coffin bound by multiple chains and bury him.
Alive.
Fast forward to 1972. Nights in White Satin is playing as you watch a young, pale girl ride on a train. The rest of the movie involves love, passion, power, and redemption. Reincarnation, hippies, magic, spells, relatives, and the crazy relationships with them. Whodunits.
Plus a lot of really good 70s music.
If you want to know any more than that and how Michelle Pfeiffer and Alice Cooper fit in you’re just going to have to watch the movie for yourself.
There is a character named Carolyn with a major plot twist towards the end. Throughout the movie, she comes across as a temperamental 15-year-old who’s going on 30. She’s a lot more than she appears. You’ve been warned.
While all of this may sound fun and entertaining remember, Barnabas is now a vampire and that will inevitably end in bloodshed so be prepared for the gore.
Then there is also the comedy. Like Depp coming back to life in 1972 and not knowing what a car is or a road. His first encounter with a human from that era. A movie theater. A payphone booth. Photographs. Television. All of the things that those of us who were alive then would take for granted.
There are a few issues with the film, however. One, how does Depp know how to be a vampire? He walks up to someone and uses his hands and voice in a manner to hypnotize that person to do his bidding. Where did he learn to do that or are we to accept the fact that it’s just a natural state of being for him?
Why does Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (played by Michelle Pfeiffer) have an accent when she was born and raised in Massachusetts? And no, it’s not a MA accent. It’s more European.
There are way too many shots of water crashing on rocks. The one sex scene involving Barnabas and Angelique is beyond ridiculous. I’m sure some will find it hilarious. I found it predictable, boring, and contrite. The song, Barry White‘s You’re the First, the Last, My Everything, was the only good thing about the entire scene and even that was lame. It wasn’t a good match for the real truth behind the scene. She is not his everything. It was a sex moment. That’s it.
Fast forward to the end of the movie and here’s another issue I have. This movie is ten years old and yet they left the ending open for a part two. But a part two was never made. Why leave a teaser (or two) open and then not make the movie?
What will we do now?
What we’ve always done. Endure.
