better than it should be...

Rating: 8/10 (24 November 1999)

I was dreading this a bit, but had to go and see it for work related reasons...though i loved the "Nightmare Before Xmas", "Mars Attacks" had taken some of the shine off Mr Burton for me, ...anyway, the tale is a dark mixture of an Edgar Allen Poe detective story and a gothic romp, which strangely enough gels much better than it should. The central ideas of the blindness of bigotry, what makes a witch bad, what makes an honest person good, and who's the biggest fool of the two, are all deftly handled, and the HUMOUR through-out is really rather good, if slightly gory (or should that be "Edward Gorey") in a "black" kinda vein. Definately not one for people that don't like swords, decapitation and Mr Depp.