Saturday, May 26, 2012

Dark Shadows: 3 out of 5 Bats


The next movie up to bat is Dark Shadows. I’m a vampire and the main character in the story is a vampire. Not only that, he is played by Johnny Depp one of the greatest actors of this century! I have not seen the older Dark Shadows series but this movie was a pretty fun romp for what it was. Depp teams up with his good pals Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter for the umpteenth time while Chloe Moretz probably fulfills one of her dreams to work with the both of them. Michelle Pfeiffer appears as the new head of the Collins family. Angelique is the main antagonist of the film and she one of the most annoying beings ever! She has an affair with Barnabus Collins (Johnny Depp) and year’s later tries to rekindle it. AFTER she already knows he is in love with someone else and set to get married. Most people would be sad but she is a witch so she takes it horribly by being sad and then setting out to destroy everything about Barnabus and the entire Collins family because well, she is a jealous witch (feel free to interchange the w with a b, it works both ways). Angelique cast a spell on Jolette, Barnabus’ bride to be that makes her jump off a cliff and kill herself. Barnabus doesn’t want to live without her so he throws himself off. Instead of dying, he gets back up and transforms into a vampire. Apparently, witches can cast spells to turn people into vampires now. I know witches and I know vampires and it just doesn’t work. Angelique doesn’t stop there, she turns the entire town against Barnabus and they have a classic angry lynch mob moment where they bury him in an iron coffin so he forced to be buried alive. He stays buried for 200 years…yeah, you read that right. 200 years of being buried in the Earth with nothing to think about but that evil b…or witch that killed his family and buried him alive. My entire family was killed two but had I been buried alive for that long then nothing could contain my killing spree! Barnabus is uncovered by the construction of a McDonalds. The only thing that may have been more ironic is Starbucks. He goes back to his home where he finds that his family that the town was named after and had a booming business at one time had been failing due to Angelique started a rival business just to really drive the stake home and prove what an obsessive wag she is. She finds out Barnabus is free and continues to torture him. Helena Bonham Carter plays a drunken doctor, Chloe Moretz a typical picture of teenage angst, and the youngest member of the family a little boy whose mother was killed in a ship wreck (caused by Angel-fricking-ique) but he still saw her in Ghost form. A new girl moves into the Collins house to take care of the kids and Barnabus falls in love with her. Angelique is STILL carrying a torch (are you seeing a pattern here?) and she decides to make his new love interest jump off a cliff as well. Barnabus builds a new cannery which Angelique blows to kingdom come and arranges yet ANOTHER lynch mob to attack Barnabus. He calls her out this time and they get into a showdown thus proving that she is a witch with supernatural powers. She calls upon the spirit of the house which causes wood carvings to come alive and attack everyone. Barnabus fends off some of them, Chloe Moretz turns into a werewolf (another tragedy caused by Angelique), and the boy is standing there scared. Angelique turns her attention to him and his ghost mother takes her down. Barnabus still has to go save his new love interest Victoria. She jumps against her will and he jumps down with her and turns her before they hit the rocks. They have a happily ever after…except for what resides in the water. There will most likely be a sequel. Overall this movie wasn’t the greatest but it was fun because Depp is fun. As a vampire I was slightly disappointed. Nothing will ever top the disappointment of when I watched Twilight though. Someone found out I was a vampire and began stalking me. She gave me her address and said she would leave the window open so I could watch her sleep and everything. I think her name was Hayley. She discovered I lived at the cemetery and would wait for me every night when I returned home. She wanted to become a vampire. I asked her why she was so interested in me and she whipped the cursed DVD Twilight. Foolishly I let her in and we watched it. Odin knew better. He watched the first five minutes with us and ran off presumably to scratch his other eye out. Making me watch that was the worst thing anyone has ever done to me since my family was killed. She wanted to become a vampire so I obliged and turned her. She was so happy…at least until I asked her to run outside so I could see her sparkle. Never have I ever been happier to see someone burst into flames! Vampires DO NOT sparkle. Dark Shadows gets kudos from me for staying away from sparkling nonsense. Bonus kudos for throwing in a performance by Alice Cooper!

Final Rating: 3 out of 5 Bats

~Vangetsu

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