Flat, Boring, Pointless -- A Total Waste

Rating: 1/10 (11 November 2012)

A campy performance by J.Depp, a strong supporting cast, some cool and fun special effects here and there, and jokes about the early 70s popular trends cannot save this movie from being one of 2012's worst releases.
There are no thrills, there is very little action, there are very few funny moments, the pace is slow, there is no character development, the plot is thin and not clever. Even a performance by Alice Cooper is boring and goes nowhere.
The original soap opera -- despite the unintended campiness of the supernatural mumbo-jumbo story lines -- at least had some character development and a relentless tension making it ABC's most watched show during its heyday in the late 1960s. Of significance is the fact that the series had dream sequences, morphing, etc., all done with the limitations of being a daytime soap with one-shot takes that went straight from live to tape. Sadly, Tom Burton spent millions of dollars on 21st century digital technology for special effects and came up with a boring, pointless film which is neither a campy comedy nor a supernatural thriller.
There was a 1991 short-lived miniseries which had a compelling cast (Ben Cross, a young Joseph Gordon-Levitt), solid plot lines (for a supernatural story), and a taut, tense pace filled with action, sex, and horror. Watch that one and pass on this turkey.