Tim Burton's Dark Shadows - Part 2

[Marvolo]

I'm even digging whatever accent she's using in this movie. Slightly different from her usual it seems.

 

[Lighthouse]

I'm even digging whatever accent she's using in this movie. Slightly different from her usual it seems.

She can use whatever accent she wants, when she did that head sway.......*faints*

 

[Dark Knight]

Still not sure what to make of this trailer. I guess I don't mind if they made it into a comedy, but as a fan of the 1980s revival series Dark Shadows with Ben Cross, I was hoping for something really dark and brutal. Cross was downright scary in that show. That being said, I've never seen the original series so I don't know how dark it was or wasn't.

But I thought the main theme was the love story between Barnabas and the woman who is the reincarnation of his lost love. The trailer made it look like it's all about Barnabas and Angelique (and it makes them look like they ultimately get together... WTF?).

Regardless of that though, I have to agree that Eva Green kicks ass in the trailer. Depp is okay, but he just seems to be doing his usual schtick. He's becoming like the goth Bruce Willis and just playing the same cooky guy in every movie.

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[Dark Knight]

I'm still saying that WB edited this trailer to look more comedic than it is.

Meh. Your probably right, but this film still seems like it will have a nice dark, gothic, yet entertaining feel to it.

I think Burton will still have those dark comedic elements, like what he did with Beetlejuice.

 

[Dark Knight]

I'm thinking it will have its quarky comedy but still have deaths and such.

It will, yet I still don't know what people are complaining about.

My mom loved the old TV series, and when she saw the trailer with Depp in the lead, she was shocked and but excited of course.

Me...I'm going to see this film because it's a dark/gothic film with Depp as a vampire, with some light hearted dark comedy, a great cast and Burton directing. Easy sell for me.

 

[Homer J. Fong]

That is not what I expected the trailer to look like. I expected comedy, but I thought it would come in the form of a handful of dry, dark one-liners. Burton hasn't made a movie that I've viewed as camp - some people call his Batman movies camp, but camp isn't the same thing as absurdity, and he's shown a knack for tapping into the absurdity of something without going as far as camp. Dark Shadows does look like camp, though, like kitsch, and I'm not sure if I think that's a good thing. On one hand, the "fish out of water" aspect looks like kind of hackneyed here, and there are some jokes in the trailer that don't work, but on the other hand, I have no allegiance to the show, I've never seen it, so I'm not offended by the apparent silliness, and there are some gags that do work. I'm certainly curious, that's for sure.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

Mars Attack is 100% grade A camp.

 

[AnneFan]

Eva Green is my kryptonite, and in this trailer.......I'm sorry, I cannot think clearly.

I was a fan before but this is the best Eva Green has looked IMO.

Me...I'm going to see this film because it's a dark/gothic film with Depp as a vampire, with some light hearted dark comedy, a great cast and Burton directing. Easy sell for me.

Yeah. i'm just judging from the trailer of course, but I do think this has the potential to be one of Burton's better films.

 

[Homer J. Fong]

Mars Attack is 100% grade A camp.

Maybe. It's a parody, and they're not quite the same thing, but that is the one that comes closest, which is fine, because the targets ('50s low-grade alien pictures, '70s ensemble disaster movies) warrant it.

 

[Mogwai]

Loved the trailer. Can't wait.

 

[Bruce Malone]

Why is the movie being set in 1972 exactly? It seems by the trailer their going for a 70's disco satire vibe but that was actually late 70's stuff.

 

[Thundercrack85]

I thought that too, a lot of the music in the trailer came out after 1972.

Maybe because Depp saying "1972" sounded better than "1978".

I never saw Dark Shadows. The trailer reminded me of the Addams Family. Had a few mildly amusing parts.

 

[dark_b]

Why is the movie being set in 1972 exactly? It seems by the trailer their going for a 70's disco satire vibe but that was actually late 70's stuff.

you watched the trailer. so the music was put inside the movie to promote the movie. in the movie it will be different IMO.

 

[Pfeiffer-Pfan]

fear not ppl, there is a lot of dark and creepy in #darkshadows, WB had to make a trailer that appealed widely, the film is brilliant

https://***********/#!/trevordmoretz

Chole Moretz's brother... was on set alot.

 

[Bruce Malone]

I still have a hard time believing the film is not a comedy. It's likely a comedy with some dark aspects but its primarily a comedy no doubt.

Regardless of how people think the trailer was put together no studio ever markets a drama/horror as a straight up comedy and vice versa. It makes no business sense in the long term since misleading your audience always causes backlash.

It is probably in the same vein as beetlejuice however.

 

[Pfeiffer-Pfan]

I'm actually thinking its going to be more around the tone and style of The Witches of Eastwick... only, of course with the PG-13 rating.

 

[Crockett]

There's no doubt that there's comedic elements, it's naive to say otherwise but I don't think that it'll be a rip-roaring comedy from start to finish. It's a bit risky when you're adapting a material and deviate from the tone but I'm thinking Burton is making the movie walk a thin line between drama and camp, which does upset some of the fans and it's not wrong for them to want something more faithful but we can never really judge by a trailer. I'd like to remain optimistic.

 

[Call Me Darkman]

you watched the trailer. so the music was put inside the movie to promote the movie. in the movie it will be different IMO.

The movie has Danny Elfman music, a big factor that people are forgetting for some reason. Elfman is the person who sets the tone for Burton's movies. Can you imagine Edward Scissorhands without his musical guidance? That film was a blend of horror, comedy, melodrama, and gothic fantasy. Without Elfman letting the audience know what to feel from scene-to-scene, the movie would have been considered an un-even mess.

https://***********/#!/trevordmoretz

Chole Moretz's brother... was on set alot.

I like how it's Chloe Moretz's brother who has to defend the film. LOL.

I still have a hard time believing the film is not a comedy. It's likely a comedy with some dark aspects but its primarily a comedy no doubt.

So, you're saying horror movies can't be funny? Have you ever seen Evil Dead 2?

 

[Bruce Malone]

^^^

No I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying this movie is a comedy with some darker aspects i very much doubt it's a horror. Even the funny horror movies are still marketed as horror movies i.e scream, evil dead. No studio would ever market a horror film as a straight up comedy. I stand by my post.

 

[Majik1387]

Studios market horror movies with comedic elements as Comedies because comedies sell better at the movie theater, not horror sadly.

 

[ddddeeee]

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Were you surprised by the reaction to the Dark Shadows trailer?
SETH GRAHAME-SMITH: I think so. Because it’s late in the game and people have been wondering what the movie is for a while, the name Dark Shadows and some of the leaked photos evoke a very straightforward, dour, gothic feeling. Which the movie does have in places. However, it’s also a very entertaining, very funny movie. We wanted to have fun with it. We wanted it to be something that paid homage to the actual series, which was campy in its own right and very sincere. But we also wanted to make something that people would have fun seeing. We didn’t want to have people sit through the organ music of a two hour chamber piece. You need to entertain and you need to have fun with the premise. And I think when people see the movie, they’ll realize we struck a good balance between respectful and updated.

That seems to be the divide: People who aren’t familiar with the show think, “Oh, this looks like fun,” whereas deep dish fans are feeling like it’s straying a little far.
I understand that, too. The reality of it is I want to please the fans, obviously. We all do. But if we made a movie that was strictly just for the hard core fans, I worry that it would exclude other people who might not want to then experience Dark Shadows from a complete fresh standpoint. So what we tried to have those elements in the movie that would really pay respect to the original series, to the origin stories, to the characters, their motives, to the idea of this as a real family story, and a gothic story, and something that would make Dan Curtis proud. And yet we wanted to open it up, because we wanted people to not be frightened of it. We want people to come and enjoy it as something completely new.

 

[CrimsonMist]

I've only seen an episode of the revival when I saw it on the Chiller channel (I haven't checked that channel in a long time....), but it was a slightly more straight faced version where they streamlined what would maybe take 5 episodes of the original into 1 episode. It also didn't have the kind of eccentric charm of Frid's performance and the old show.

Barnabas's love story with Vicky is important, but the highlight of the show that I remember is Barnabas vs. Angelique. I don't know if she was in the revival, but she was pretty much pure evil in the original show. Even if they turn it into bloody Addams Family in the movie, I doubt they will change that. At least, I hope not.

Yea, I wasn't too much of a fan of the revival show. It wasn't that it was played straight but that it lacked alot of the demented, slightly bizarre and surreal vibe of the original series. I also thought Ben Cross wasn't a very good Barnabas. He wasn't very charasmatic.

Angelique was in the revival but the show was canned before they could really conclude it. We get their backstory and what not, but they never saw it through.

Anyways, I'm not really feeling the trailer all that much. I was expecting something closer to Sleepy Hollow. The thing with Dark Shadows is that it's aged the same way that the old Universal Horror films did. The scares have dissipated but what you're left with is something incredibly surreal, demented and mildly disturbing. And for all the goofs and slip-ups of the show, it was still damn good. All of that seems to be missing in this trailer. Depp's Barnabas seems to lack much of charm of Frid's, who was far more suave and straight laced. It helped that Collinwood felt so detatched from the rest of the world. The "man out of time" as a comedy thing feels really tired here, too. I really wish Burton played it straight, but we'll see I guess.

 

[Sgt.Pepper]

Based on the trailer, it looks nothing like the original series. But I liked that they are doing a fresh and unique version of the story rather than making it precisely as the original series. I can understand that the die-hard fans would be disappointed by this but for my part, I'm game.

 

[Raiden]

I like both Burton and Depp, but I think Eva Green is the one that actually gets me very interested in the movie. Burton & Depp have worked together so many times in the past that I think they really got the formula down to a science, but I think this movie may not have the appeal across the demographics like some of their previous collaborations did.

 

[DACrowe]

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Were you surprised by the reaction to the Dark Shadows trailer?
SETH GRAHAME-SMITH: I think so. Because it’s late in the game and people have been wondering what the movie is for a while, the name Dark Shadows and some of the leaked photos evoke a very straightforward, dour, gothic feeling. Which the movie does have in places. However, it’s also a very entertaining, very funny movie. We wanted to have fun with it. We wanted it to be something that paid homage to the actual series, which was campy in its own right and very sincere. But we also wanted to make something that people would have fun seeing. We didn’t want to have people sit through the organ music of a two hour chamber piece. You need to entertain and you need to have fun with the premise. And I think when people see the movie, they’ll realize we struck a good balance between respectful and updated.

That seems to be the divide: People who aren’t familiar with the show think, “Oh, this looks like fun,” whereas deep dish fans are feeling like it’s straying a little far.
I understand that, too. The reality of it is I want to please the fans, obviously. We all do. But if we made a movie that was strictly just for the hard core fans, I worry that it would exclude other people who might not want to then experience Dark Shadows from a complete fresh standpoint. So what we tried to have those elements in the movie that would really pay respect to the original series, to the origin stories, to the characters, their motives, to the idea of this as a real family story, and a gothic story, and something that would make Dan Curtis proud. And yet we wanted to open it up, because we wanted people to not be frightened of it. We want people to come and enjoy it as something completely new.

Updating it is fine. I didn't want it to be a big budget soap. But turning a gothic drama full of what's supposed to be creepiness and tragedy into farce and parody...

I find it a false argument to say that the only way to "open it up" to a new audience was to turn into a comedy. To me, this writer is a very funny (I enjoyed both PPAZ and ALVH) and he and Burton decided to go that route. But when the trailer for ALVH looks more series and gothic than Dark Shadows's trailer, there is a problem.