So I kinda actually liked the Dark Shadows movie, I'm afraid for my mental health

Cafe Society
1

Well if there was ever a movie with a misleading trailer, goofy fish out of water comedy is very little of the actual film.

Johnny Depp is hamming it up playing a possible self parody, and I didn’t care.

I can’t even say why I liked it other than it sticked to its premise well and was entertaining enough, I liked how other than characters who were probably supposed to be insane no one held an idiot ball and no one lost sleep over the morality of their actions. I never saw more than an episode in passing of the original show so I don’t really care how true it was to the source material. I liked that it had an offbeat protagonist and offbeat characters and it had the guts to go with it.

I’m kind of scared actually.:frowning:

Ok I had one complaint which was that the werewolf reveal came out of nowhere and had nothing to do with nothing.

2

…I hate the modern “werewolf” that isn’t wolfy, just has big feet.

I finally got around to seeing it on Sunday. I liked the first half, when it was actually horror movie with some actual scary moments, and then hilarious comedy in turn. The second half when it was gothic romance/revenge, I got bored. Act II felt like a TV show to me, in pacing, convention and style, while the first half felt like a movie.

It was something of a Frankenstein of a film, all patched together lurching toward a conclusion. It had pieces that I liked, but I couldn’t like it overall.

3

I was a childhood fan of the original who can’t stomach watching it now- tho Dan Curtis’ TV movies of the same era have held up well. Also, the Barnabas theatrical movie from the early 1970s. And I enjoyed the early 1990s attempted reboot of DS.

That said- I saw the new DS twice- took my Little Bros (BBBS) first & took my brother & Mom second. We all enjoyed it for what it was- a horror movie with comic bits. The LBs had no idea about the original other than what I told them. My bro & Mom were also fans from back in the day. Glad that I got to take my Mom to that before she passed away. It was fun for her.

4

I enjoyed it more than I anticipated, but I really thought I would hate it, so that isn’t saying much. I would have liked to have seen someone do a more serious, better written version, but it was not all terrible. Mostly they just tried to cram too many bits in while taking long strolls through the Tim Burtony sets. Still, I always love Colleen Atwood’s costumes.

5

I thought Depp did a great job. He was supposed to ham it up.
The werewolf out of nowhere didn’t bother me, because the tv show pulled stuff like that all the time.
All in all I had a good time at the movie, but it could have been so much better. I guess my expectations were low.

6

The werewolf was furry all over, not only the feet had changed. And I liked how they kept the original hair color of the character, as the wolf’s fur color. Nothing annoys me more than a brunette human turning into a white wolf, or a blond guy turning into a black one.

Anyway, I liked the movie.

7

Just saw it too -

Agree that it was sold as a comedy, but wasn’t very comedic.

It felt like “let’s put on a show!”, that they kinda made it up as they went along. The usual meaningless casting of Ms. Burton. And Jonny Lee Miller was wasted - why was he even there? I’m guessing he was just picking up a paycheck. You could say the same for Jackie Earle Haley.

The whole 1970’s schtick was OK for a while, then was meaningless…like a lot of the plot points, they were spun out then mostly dropped.

8

I sort of liked it. It was a good way to evoke the sense of the original show, and had a few gags too. But a lot of that was nostalgic memories of the show, which was kind of dull and tedious. I’m surprised that people who aren’t as aged and decrepit as I am would have any interest in this movie.

9

Nuh-uh.

10

I don’t even remember the werewolf. But I liked it. Why? Four words: “Fear me not, Drunkard!”

11

Entertaining enough movie, certainly.

12

Uh huh. That closeup shows fur on her face. Her eyes and teeth had changed as well. So my statement holds.

13

:dubious: Seriously? My 7 year old has more peach fuzz on her face. Look, I realize this is not an argument I’m going to win, because Hollywood has gotten so special effects happy. But a werewolf is a person who shapeshifts…into a wolf. A wolf. Not a wolfish waif, not a man/monster hybrid. A wolf. Grr.

14

You don’t know much about actual werewolves. They can take all sorts of intermediate forms between human and wolf.

15

I thought it was kind of slow and dull, but wonderful to look at.

I wish there were more comic bits, they seemed just thrown in and then forgotten.

Notice Jonathan Frid, and Quentin, Angelique, and maybe Maggie Evans as party guests?

The girl playing the daughter did a wonderful job! I haven’t wanted to punch a snotty doped up teenager in the nose so much since the daughter on American Horror Story, last year.

Why was it set in 1972 - maybe because it was still plausible to have a successful business in the fishing industry?

What was the point of HBC giving Barney a b.j.? Wasn’t the very last scene hinting heavily at an opening for a sequel?

Why ‘Nights In White Satin’ for the opening credits? Why Alice Cooper - maybe because he was Big in 1972?

Weren’t Maggie Evans and Victoria Winter two separate characters in the original DS? Why did Maggie Evans call herself Victoria Winter, anyway?

Eva Green was so beautiful she looked unreal. Uncannily beautiful.

This movie was all over the place. Barnabus walking around in the daylight? Since when? He looked like Michael Jackson.

But I enjoyed it. Not as much as I’d hoped, but I’ve been waiting for this movie for years.

Oh, and I think Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, and Helena Bonham Carter are wonderful, I enjoy every movie they make, I hope they keep on making movies, and no, it doesn’t bother me that they do the same old weird things. (Except as they get older, they’d better get weirder, Johnny Depp is losing his good looks fast. And I’m hoping Helena BC looked so awful in this movie only because of the costume and makekup !)

16

Oh, I’m a purist too. I prefer my werewolves to go total wolf.

But her fur was the same color as her hair, which was basically the same color as her face. Her hair was probably covering her pointy ears. That’s realistic. She’s essentially closer to The Wolfman than to Ladyhawke but as stated, there are many levels in between.

17

Yes, I did. Wiki says Frid died not long afterwards.

Just saw it today on a library DVD. I kinda liked it, all in all, but thought Burton never quite decided if it was a soap opera, a horror movie, or a fish-out-of-water comedy. Never quite clicked. Maybe three big laughs in the whole movie, and the occasional smile-inducing moment otherwise. The ending was a big mess. Good cast, soundtrack and visuals, though.

18

Wow… I honestly thought this was one of the worst movies I’ve seen all year.–and I watched “That’s My Boy” with Adam Sandler.

I thought the romance plot with the nanny killed any interesting momentum the movie would pick up…but then that whole plot disappeared from the movie for a good half hour…so it wasn’t just that.