OH DEAR. DARK SHADOWS MIGHT SUCK AFTER ALL.

Oh, Elisabeth. As if there was ever a doubt. This will be a Depp grimace-athon of epic proportions.

Although I have to admit, your youthful wide-eyed innocence regarding this has been refreshing. 

Isn't... camp value about the only thing the original has going for it though? I haven't watched it since I was bored fucking stiff by it as a child when my Mom and Aunt made me watch it while reliving their childhood.

Where's Phil? I defer to his opinion on this particular matter.

Quote:

Originally Posted by stelios 

Oh, Elisabeth. As if there was ever a doubt. This will be a Depp grimace-athon of epic proportions.

 

Although I have to admit, your youthful wide-eyed innocence regarding this has been refreshing. 

I keep trying to be the happy voice on CHUD instead of my usually grim self, and balance out all the skepticism...but I may just finally break!!

Love/hate sounds very SWEENEY TODD to me. It can be done without camp and still be funny. As far as period goes, most Tim Burton flicks take place in a "when does this take place?" hyper-reality anyway (EDWARD S, CHARLIE, BATMAN) or Victorian era, so I don't see it as a stretch too far from his wheelhouse. I'll remain optimistic.

Isn't SLEEPY HOLLOW pretty campy anyway?  

I never watched the original show, but I get the impression that a straight, utterly sincere version of DARK SHADOWS would be as insufferably stiff as TWILIGHT.

I have only recently started watching Dark Shadows on "streaming" and I have to agree that a major asset to the show is the (unintentional or not) campy atmosphere. Green's use of "Who's Afraid of Virgina Woolf" as a way of describing her role seems dead on appropriate. Hell, if Burton actually achieved that 'Virgina Woolf' level of caliber from his actors and the script, I'd be pleasantly surprised.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ratty 

Isn't SLEEPY HOLLOW pretty campy anyway?  

 

I don't think it is. Depp's performance might veer towards camp, but I think it works without making the film into FLASH GORDON. Not there's anything wrong with that.

SLEEPY HOLLOW is more arch than camp. DARK SHADOWS could work if done archly. But camp? No.

We've got enough vampire camp played straight plaguing TV and film right now, and even True Blood has the good sense to be self-aware and hilarious from time to time. This news is neither plus or minus.

As long as the movie has Eva Green wears tight black clothes, it can't be all bad.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chaz 

As long as the movie has Eva Green wears tight black clothes, it can't be all bad.

A tightly-clad Uma Thurman (Avengers, Batman and Robin) begs to disagree.

Tim Burton sucks period. The man hasn't done good work in years I hate that Alice was a huge win for him.

The man lost it long ago and every film has great art direction but great art direction does not make a film great by itself.

His emo films are a parody.

I don't think he's lost it so much as he's put it on the shelf to collect dust while he collects fat paychecks.  We can whinge on about the quality of his recent work until the cows come home, but if you had a formula that brought in Alice money, would you really want to fuck with it?  Now of course, I do wish that he'd get back to being that director whose work I fell in love with so long ago, but I've made peace with the fact that it ain't happenin'.  Move along, folks.  Nothing to see here.

I don't know, the things that frighten you sound about exactly as I'd expected them.  I don't picture the camp as like Sam Raimi-Hecrules/Xena type camp, more like... well the camp that's present in every single movie that Tim Burton has ever laid hands on.  I expected it to be all kinds of 70s kitschy, because that's about the only thing about the show that made it worth watching.  Dark Shadows is quite possibly the only vampire romance worse than Twilight, but it's just so endearingly retarded that you can't hate it.

Move along folks the man's work these days is worthless, useless and doesn't deserve to be recognized I agree.

The sad thing is that this is the most interesting this he's done in YEARS.

I know it's the law of chud that every mention of Tim Burton must be framed as a 2-Minutes Hate to whip up the inevitable circlejerk of venom on the forums, but this one is daft. The movie may well suck, but are there any real reasons why setting it in the 70's and having humour are horrible ideas, other than because you've just decided they are?

Did everyone here forget that Burton made his second best film, Sweeney Todd, just before Alice? As far as I'm concerned, Sweeney is a fucking masterpiece and Burton's second best flick after Ed Wood. But most of you act as though he strangled your mother while anally raping her before cutting off her head and fucking her esophagus!?! And what the fuck do any of you care if he likes working with his best friend and the mother of his children while making a fucking fortune doing so? We should all be soo lucky.

Yeah, Alice wasn't very good but that was mainly the fault of the script which has always been Burton's weakness as a Director. The main problems with Alice were that A - he made it a sequel to the original story when he could have easily made it Alice’s first trip to Wonderland. B – It doesn’t help to create tension when the main protagonist is a fucking moron who spends the entire movie thinking she’s in a dream. C - Mia Whatsherface was a fucking zero charisma non-entity when Emma Watson or Carrey Mulligan would have been ideal for the part. D – Avril Latrine sang that fucking horrid song when Amy Lee of Evanescence should have been hired. Seriously, check out her rendition of Sally’s Song on Jay Leno on YouTube if you don’t believe me.

Now, because Alice made a billion worldwide, I’m hoping that the success will allow Burton to go fucking nuts with Dark Shadows and there’s no reason to doubt that movie will be, at the very least, good. Burton knows Gothic Horror like he knows the taste of Helena Bonham Carter's pussy. He and Depp have been planning on doing this for a long time. The cast is top fucking notch while the script is being written by Seth Grahame-Smith who was responsible for Abraham Lincoln - Vampire Hunter which, from what I’ve read, was quite good. Now, since I’m not fucking psychic, I will wait and see how this turns out. It could be good, it could be great and it could also be a fucking flaming pile of dogshit!!! However, since I haven't seen a frame of it I will reserve judgment until a trailer is produced.

Oh and I think Burton should be setting this in late 60's swinging London. Austin Powers meets Bram Stokers Dracula, no?

Sweeney Todd doesn't even come close to being Burton's second best film.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ratty 

I never watched the original show, but I get the impression that a straight, utterly sincere version of DARK SHADOWS would be as insufferably stiff as TWILIGHT.

100% correct.

Quote:

Originally Posted by joeypants 

Isn't... camp value about the only thing the original has going for it though? I haven't watched it since I was bored fucking stiff by it as a child when my Mom and Aunt made me watch it while reliving their childhood.

 

Where's Phil? I defer to his opinion on this particular matter.

Got ya covered Joey. If the original show had any value at all (and I'm saying this as a bona fide, actually-been-to-Dark-Shadows-conventions fan), it was in the absurd plots, wrapped in horrifyingly garish 60s/70s clothing, played out on balsa wood and scotch tape sets. Since Tim Burton has been primarily an aesthete since, say, forever, setting it in the 70s is a 100% logical bit of news. There's literally nothing in the show worth doing a "serious" or updated take on, as its plotlines were all cribbed from other sources to begin with. What made the show special was its unique flavor of ridiculous.

It's clear this is going to be a paean to the show Depp and Burton loved as kids, and they'll be having goofy fun in a cheesy sandbox. The only bad news I'm gleaning here is that he's going balls deep on a subject matter that no one else gives a crap about. Last time he did that was Ed Wood, and it fucking tanked. On the other hand, Ed Wood.

These two points suggest it might be time to research the show. Quentin had the sideburns, not Barnabas. Tsk tsk! And Depp's already said he's basically going to do a Frid impression. Me and about a dozen 55 year old ladies are fucking STOKED.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phil 

 

 

 

These two points suggest it might be time to research the show. Quentin had the sideburns, not Barnabas. Tsk tsk! And Depp's already said he's basically going to do a Frid impression. Me and about a dozen 55 year old ladies are fucking STOKED.

Hence my referring to it in the actual article -- and I have researched and watched it, thanks for the trust as always, Phil.  As I said,  I was very young when I watched it, so it struck me as pretty real and serious.  When you're a child, you don't really pick up on camp.   Fans I knew always seemed to take it deadly seriously, but maybe they were being ironic.

And they may not have been Wolverine level muttonchops, but Frid had sideburns:

What's kind of sad about the look is that he often sort of just combed the Monkees haircut into sideburns, as if he could have it both ways. You can't, Frid, you have to pick one or the other.

Not trying to be snarky or bitchy, by the way.   I realize I remember the show different, but I was half-hoping they would do something that wasn't self-aware and campy.  That just strikes me as the easy, detatched, too cool for this shit path.  I'd like someone to challenge themselves and make a serious Gothic potboiler. Even if Dark Shadows turned out campy (and as far as I know, it wasn't intentional), it wasn't meant to be, and if you're going to redo it, why not redo it as it was (I'm assuming) supposed to be?

I could even be down with it being in the 1970s (seemingly the last gasp of the Gothic New England old money anyway) except that Burton's referenced Hammer retro horror so often that going full blown with it is just...easy.

That's my problem with it.  I'm not calling doom, I'd just like to see Gothic horror done right for a change.  And this does come out of being crushed by The Wolfman too.

Retro Hammer IS Gothic done right, to me. Hammer wrote the book on that stuff.

I'd argue Hammer did it right, but it was definitely infused with the 60s-70s style and a healthy love of T&A.  I'd like to see some tackle what I consider classic Gothic -- the oppressive, stifling, true-to-its-corseted-time style of Poe, Stoker, Shelley, the Brontes, or even Louisa May Alcott or Lucy Maud Montgomery's "scandalous" stuff.   Hammer never had that to me -- it's got a real retro, grotty postwar grime that's atmospheric  in its own way but not that "I've been buried alive!" sense. 

But that's me.  I get a different feeling off the original literature that I don't think any movie (save a couple adaptations of Jane Eyre - so curious to see the new one - and, to bring Burton into it again, a few scenes of Sleepy Hollow and Sweeney Todd) has really captured.  My expectations are probably in a wildly different and impossible place though.

Yes, the sideburns truly define his look. Simmer down. ;)

I'm just saying the same thing over and over again at this point, but "Dark Shadows done seriously" happened both before the series (in the various source material they ripped off on the reg), and after (in the 1970 theatrical film, and in the 1991 remake, and a wee bit in Francis Coppola's Dracula). I'll bet my pinky it's not the storylines inspiring Burton or Depp here. It's the wonky execution for which they feel genuine affection, and to which the film will be a love letter. The show had a unique vibe, and it's not goth and it's not Hammer. It's its own mess.

Manage those expectations by Netflixing the Dark Shadows Bloopers DVD. It's the easiest way to "get" the show without diving all-in.

Elizabeth, what are your thoughts on The Others?  That's the last film I can think of that is sort of in that "gothic" realm. 

I would LOVE for Burton to use Corman's Poe films as an inspiration for this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ratty 

Elizabeth, what are your thoughts on The Others?  That's the last film I can think of that is sort of in that "gothic" realm. 

I love that movie. For some reason I forget it exists -- I think because I used it for the basis for a paper, got sick with the flu, and it merged into this horrible fever dream of a memory.  But that's a perfect example of the tone I'd like to see more horror take, especially when it comes to "tired" and "unscary" monsters like ghosts, vampires and werewolves.  It's hard to pull off, but when it works (and it really does in The Others) it's a thing of awful beauty.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Merriweather 

I would LOVE for Burton to use Corman's Poe films as an inspiration for this.

I've been following every bit of news so far, and I think actors and Burton HAVEN'T used the word "funny", like, twice. He might have been joking, but Burton's even said he was thinking about inserting CGI flies landing on the actor's faces while they play out their scenes.

Sounds like they're adapting their memories of the TV show, which to me is a cool spin. The storylines themselves are cliched and dull.