Tim Burton's Dark Shadows - Part 2

[Sawyer]

Seems that MTV has noticed the massive difference between the score and the trailer as well...

MTV:

'Dark Shadows' Score A Far Cry From Slapstick Trailer
Is Tim Burton's vampire flick darker than the campy trailer had us believe?
By John Mitchell

So we've been talking a lot about that gonzo first trailer for "Dark Shadows." It's got its defenders and its detractors and that's all pretty well documented , so we're not going to spill any more ink on it. But now Warner Bros. has muddied the waters a bit by releasing Danny Elfman's full score for the film — and it's definitely not the score to a slapstick comedy.

First things first, the trailer unquestionably makes "Dark Shadows" seem like a farce. We've argued that's not necessarily a bad thing — sometimes a radical overhaul is what it takes to reinvent something old for modern audiences (see: "Charlie's Angels," "Mission Impossible") — but the tone set in the trailer is a complete departure from what everyone expected, while Elfman's score, which can be heard in its entirety on WB's Watertower Music , seems perfect for the film that fans of the TV show thought they were getting. Strange, right?

Elfan's score is rich, deep and dark. It is heavy on strings, ambient sounds and atmosphere. The drama factor is high and there's little evidence of slapstick. Tracks like "Killing Dr. Hoffman," "Deadly Handshake" and "Barnabas Collins Comes Home" have an almost menacing and methodic feel, and "Dumping the Body" and "Widow's Hill" are rife with shadowy action.

The music for the film is kind of amazing, actually. (Should Danny Elfman begin readying for his fifth Oscar nomination?) But what is most exceptional about it is how little it fits the film Burton had us expecting. There's been some indication from sources close to the film that the comedic elements were dialed up for the trailer. After its initial arrival and ensuing fan backlash, co-star Chloë Moretz's brother, Trevor Duke-Moretz, tweeted , "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."

Talking about the film late last year, Helena Bonham Carter told MTV News , "I love 'Dark Shadows.' It's very original. It's uncategorizable. It's a soap opera but it's very, very subtle. ... It's a ghost story, it's an unhappy vampire story, it's a mixture of so many things and a real ensemble piece. And, um, hopefully it will be funny."

Those don't sound like the words of someone who just got done filming a flat-out gonzo comedic reinterpretation of a cult soap opera. In the past, Tim Burton has been a master of mixing the wonderfully weird with the dark and sentimental, and it's difficult to convey a film's complexity in a two-minute advertisement. Is it possible he's really hiding a much more layered, horror-lite drama that includes moments of high comedy (almost all seemingly playing off Barnabas' trouble getting his footing in the modern world) behind a slapstick trailer, hoping to reach as wide an audience as possible?

A few scenes in the trailer have always felt a bit out of place if the film really is an all-out comedy. The bleakness of Barnabas' transition into a vampire at the bottom of Widow's Peak is one. The "fight on, Barnabas" scene between Johnny Depp and Michelle Pfeiffer is another. Perhaps rather than try to do something serious with the show's inherent camp, Burton and company decided to poke fun at it and move on? Maybe whatever consulting firm had its hands in cutting the trailer thought the one-liners would pull in more paying customers?

Who knows? But Elfman's dark and amazing score adds another layer to the mystery.

 

[terry78]

Yeah, I suspected WB kind of cut the trailer to appeal to the masses so they'd go see it. If it's got a Sweeney Todd level of macabre humor, it may not make the summer coinage they want.

 

[AnneFan]

First time I've properly sat down and listened to the score snippets, and I love what I hear. Very atmospheric from Elfman.

 

[Majik1387]

Look at MTV being all smart and stuff, putting logic together. Kudos MTV writer.

 

[Sawyer]

Look at MTV being all smart and stuff, putting logic together. Kudos MTV writer.

Oh, you, let them have their moment.... these moments where they pull their heads out of their asses and act like something in the world actually exists besides just Justin Beiber, Nicki Minaj and the Jersey Shore cast are pretty few and far between, you know.

 

[Kurosawa]

Well, they're a big company, law of averages says someone there has to be intelligent.

 

[ddddeeee]

What did they expect though? Some farting brass to compliment the comedy? Barnabas is being completely serious in the trailer, even in the comedic moments, Elfman is probably following that.

 

[Call Me Darkman]

What did they expect though? Some farting brass to compliment the comedy? Barnabas is being completely serious in the trailer, even in the comedic moments, Elfman is probably following that.

No. He isn't. WB is releasing a soundtrack in addition to the score album. Meaning, this film is gonna have a lot of songs. My guess is that Elfman's score will only be used during the non-comedic scenes.

 

[Majik1387]

a.k.a. All the scenes.

 

[Sawyer]

There being a non-score soundtrack doesn't mean much. There was one for Alice in Wonderland too. I don't recall a single song from it ending up in the actual film. I'm guessing a majority of them will just be in the end credits. Songs inspired by the film and whatnot.

And then, of course, a few old Alice Cooper tracks.

 

[Call Me Darkman]

There being a non-score soundtrack doesn't mean much. There was one for Alice in Wonderland too.

Yeah, but that's Disney which has a successful record label and saw an opportunity to reach the Hot Topic crowd. Warner Bros. doesn't typically do things like this. So, I wouldn't be surprised if Dark Shadows has its share of needle drops. Besides, it wouldn't be Un-Burton like to do such a thing. This is the same guy who gave us these:

[YT]BodXwAYeTfM[/YT]

[YT]AQXVHITd1N4[/YT]

[YT]9tgxIWgJ_DE[/YT]

[YT]MzPp9o3K7jg[/YT]

[YT]BuLl5XD57zU[/YT]

 

[Still Wynning]

I listened those track samples, and I have to say, I really liked what I heard. I loved the use synth in some of the tracks, which is nice because it has a bit of a different sound from his other scores and shows that he experimented a bit more.

I really like "Resurrection" because it has a very nice 80's horror film vibe, like John Carpenter's The Thing meets Jerry Goldsmith's Alien, with a little Danny Elfman twist. t:

 

[ddddeeee]

"Beetlejuice Meets Sweeney

A guy I know who gets around has seen "almost all" of Tim Burton's Dark Shadows. He reports the following: "While it has Beetlejuice elements, this is not a broad comedy. It's a gothic romance with strong farcical elements, but the trailer makes it seem like Love at First Bite and it definitely is not.

"Johnny Depp's Barnabas Collins has a bit of a Chauncey Gardner quality as a fish out of water, and there are even elements of H.G. Wells from Time After Time as far as a cultured character trying to fit into a drastically changed society. The anachronism-based humor does work quite well. The film is funny, but it also has full-bodied horror elements. Barnabas does kill people in this and when he engages on a full-out war against Angelique (Evas Green), the evil witch who cursed him, they're playing for keeps and it's a bloody battle.

"In short there's more of the Burton Sweeney Todd than the trailer implies. This is not Burton's Addams Family, but a successful amalgamation of his comedic and gothic horror styles."

Oh, and Michelle Pfeiffer's performance as Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (the mother of Chloe Moretz's Carolyn, who reminds me in the trailer of Winona Ryder's character in Beetlejuice) is "her strongest work in years."

http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2012/04/revised_beetlej.php

 

[marvelrobbins]

Great news.It says what I have been saying.

Oh,how great Is It Michelle Pfeiffer Is in a major theartical released film again.And I am thirlled to her she gives strong performance.

 

[Majik1387]

She was awesome in New Year's Eve.

 

[Pfeiffer-Pfan]

Everything sounds great

Yeah... I literally sat through New Year's Eve for Michelle alone. She was good in it but obviously deserved better.

 

[Majik1387]

Idk, she lucked out getting the hottest guy in the movie.

 

[Road Warrior]

WB needs to release a new trailer and pronto.

 

[Pfeiffer-Pfan]

Idk, she lucked out getting the hottest guy in the movie.

Definitely. He obviously has a big geeky crush on her... and he gets her looking the way she did in the film.

Oh well... he got hot-Pfeiffer during the films promotion.

 

[Pfeiffer-Pfan]

 

[piccolo]

I wanted to see this, until I saw the trailer in the theaters and it looked like a modern themed fish-out-of-water comedy.

 

[Destructus86]

I liked the 70's music in the trailer.

 

[Sawyer]

I liked the 70's music in the trailer.

So you like what pretty much all of us have agreed was the one aspect to drag the trailer down?

Okay.

 

[Majik1387]

I don't think the music is the only or main thing that brought the trailer down.

 

[Sawyer]

Pretty big one.