Return to Collinwood

Rating: 7/10 (13 May 2012)

My review of the Dark Shadows movie.
Dark Shadows is the Gothic day time drama from 1966 in which most of the leading characters were supernatural beings.
First let's begin withthe bad about this movie.
I love bats. I love wolves. I miss vampires would take bat and wolf form in movies. It's gotten so bad that there are major news sites that mistakenly think Evil Ed of the original Fright Night is a werewolf despite all the evidence to the contrary because modern audiences can't wrap their mind around vampires taking wolf and bat form. Now on to Carolyn's secret. I had no problem with Carolyn being a werewolf but I do think her werewolf form could have looked a lot better.
The one joke I HATED was when Barnabas told Carolyn she should put her birthing hips to use lest her womb shrivel and die. It was a period based joke that didn't really work for me. It was a running gag that did not deserve to be one. It was old before it even started. Let it go.
There's also some questions of continuity and plot. In Dark Shadows there were a few such questions. After Barnabas was sealed away and his parents and "one true love" were dead where did the new Collins family come from? Were there other siblings or cousins of Barnabas they just forgot to mention? Granted the original show had similar plot holes.
How did Elizabeth not know her daughter had been a werewolf since a baby? I also noticed if you do the math they try to imply that Barnabas was very young when he became a vampire and I feel condescended to when they try to make him much younger just to appeal to a younger crowd, the man is almost fifty! Don't try to claim he's younger than forty.
Now for the good:
I LOVE Barnabas' vampire form. I like that he's a traditional, classic vampire. Like the actual 1897 Dracula novel he has the slightly pointed ears, the very white skin, the long fingers and sharp claw-like nails of Dracula himself. Some people had whined that he's too obviously a vampire but let's be realistic here, most people do NOT automatically assume someone is a real-life vampire. The more obvious choice would be that he suffers from a form of porphyria.
I loved when he slept upside down like a bat with his arms folded over himself. I loved his use of hypnosis and that he was easy to hypnotize.
The film Dark Shadows is not as much a comedy as the advertising would have you think,
I loved the aesthetic vision of the actual movie. It had great visuals. Collinwood itself looked fantastic. Widow's Hill is haunting. I absolutely adore the image of Josette's ghost. I miss ghosts looking like that, whispy, watery, translucent. Not things that look like jerky and spazzing video tape footage.
I loved the use of symbolism in the movie. I am fairly certain that Josette's ghost was not a ghost at all but actually the subconscious mind of Maggie Evans / Victoria Winters coming to the surface trying to reveal who she was in her past life and make her remember. I felt the ending of the film was exactly how Barnabas of the original TV show would have wanted Dark Shadows to end.
When Depp's Barnabas prattled on about the architecture and why he would not call Victoria by Vicky it was VERY true to the original Barnabas Collins.
I loved the melding of Robert Corbert's original Dark Shadow's TV scoring with Danny Elfman's own instrumental pieces.
I also loved the Alice Cooper songs, particularly the use of the Balad of Dwight Fry when Vicky's past iis revealed. Drwight Frye is a famous Classic horror movie actor who usually played insane henchmen, most famously Renfield in the 1931 Dracula.
I liked the small nod to the Paul Stoddard Plot during that scene because when Carolyn does the opening of the song "Mommy, when's Daddy coming home? He's been gone for such a long time. I don't think he's ever coming home" Elizabeth looks mortified. In the original show Elizabeth believed she had accidentally killed her husband.
A character I thought I would hate but actually ended up liking was Mrs. Johnson. She's just crazy!
I loved Christopher Lee's cameo.
The cameo of the original Dark Shadows actors showing up at the party was bitter sweet. You can tell Jonathan Frid was very frail.
I loved the ending. I felt what happened was Maggie / Vicky finally knowing who she truly was and embracing her past, the life that had truly been happy, the one with Barnabas. The ending was how I imagine Barnabas of the original TV show wanted Dark Shadows to end. I also loved that Dr. Julia Hoffman was trying to make herself into a vampire. I actually pitied her.
This wasn't just an adaptation of the original 1960s Dark Shadows. It was a hodgepodge of all previous incarnations of Dark Shadows with something new added and I appreciated it for what it was. Even the plot holes which I mentioned felt similar to plot holes you would find in the original series so it was surprisingly satisfying. This was a lovingly done homage, not a spoof, not a parody, a homage.
I give it 7.5 out of ten stars or 8 stars, depending on my mood. I have already watched the film twice and I will likely watch it again.