AT THE MOVIES
With David Begelman
“Dark Shadows:”
Reprising the Undead
If
you’ve been scratching your head over why there’s a current boom of interest in
vampires, answers may not be hard to find. Those blood-suckers are a canvas on
which other enduring concerns are writ large—like our preoccupation with
mortality. But don’t expect all the creatures to be nasty, at least not in the
movies. True, original creations like Sheridan LeFanu’s 1872 “Carmilla,” Bram
Stoker’s iconic 1897 “Dracula” and
Murnau’s 1922 “Nosferatu” had ugly dispositions. But that’s old hat.
The
undead these days are characters with a fair share of benevolence, if not
lovability. Wesley Snipes’ “Blade,” like Kate Beckinsale’s “Selena” in
“Underworld,” are vampires you’d be eager to have as allies when the going gets
rough. The same goes for some vampires in Anne Rice novels. Or those in teleseries
like “True Blood” and “Twilight.”
The
release of Tim Burton’s “Dark Shadows” in May of this year coincided—the
superstitious might say mysteriously—with the death of Jonathan Frid, the
original vampire Barnabas in the 1960s and early 1970s teleseries. Frid, along
with three other performers in the series, had walk-on roles in the film.
The
movie explores another preoccupation of vampires, family history. Dracula
boasted about his Transylvanian lineage going back to the glory days of Attila
the Hun. Barnabas Collins, the blood-sucking hero of Burton’s film, while rueful
about his undead plight, has a soft spot for relatives in his family estate of
Collinwood. He can slaughter with impunity workers who freed him from his grave.
A group of hippies high on weed meets the same fate. Yet his attitude toward the
mortal family at the estate is one of solicitude.
Tim
Burton, with his signature spin on matters dark, was a natural for directing
“Dark Shadows.” And who is a better choice to cast as Barnabas than Johnny
Depp? The actor has amassed an impressive record of offbeat and arresting
characterizations. They include those in “Sleepy Hollow,” “Charlie and the
Chocolate Factory,” “Alice in Wonderland,” “Sweeney Todd; The Demon Barber of
Fleet Street,” and the unforgettable “Edward Scissorhands,” all directed by
Burton.
Barnabas
is disadvantaged when freed from his faux slumber in 1972. Not only does he
have to deal with the conniving witch Angelique (played by the alluring Eva
Green), who is responsible for his entombed plight. He’s woefully unprepared
for the twentieth century, not to mention its idiomatic ways. Had Burton exploited
this conceit alone, “Dark Shadows” might have turned out to be less of a bomb
than it is.
Memorable
moments in the film are when Barnabas, despite immortal longings, comes off as
a dunderhead when flummoxed by modernity. One of his relatives, the rebellious teenager
Carolyn (Chloë Moretz), when faced with the vampire’s 18th century
demeanor, asks “Are you stoned?” He responds as though she were talking about the
biblical form of retribution. Other advice imparted by Carolyn includes
encouraging the vampire to get some normal friends.
After
an amusing start, “Dark Shadows” goes into a free-fall, inept storyline. This
includes tedious scenes of escalating battles between vampire and witch amid
antique bric-a-brac and chandeliers; misdirected blood transfusions by a
psychiatrist (Helena Bonham Carter); shock treatments administered to a child;
going up in smoke when exposed to light, although sunlight is taken in stride with
a broad-brimmed hat; having sex up and down walls and across ceilings; and
sleeping upside down in upholstery.
There’s
more, like serial dives off impossibly high cliffs, setting fire to everything,
spot appearances by rocker Alice Cooper (if only to rattle the comfort level provided
in a sound track by the Carpenters), and the usual round of inflamed villagers
on the march, an inevitable staple of horror
flicks. It’s all too much to digest.
