My Spoiler Free Review

[mnke...@comcast.net]

Scuse any typos folks.. i typed this fast to get it to my Facebook
pals. But i certainly HAD to share with my "Dark Shadows" Family. So
please enjoy.
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Warning ** This is long so feel free to pass on it**
My "Not So mini-review" of "Dark Shadows". Fisrt i gotta note- i now
recall why i dislike going to the movies= other people piss me off!
Ok, that's out of the way. Ahem...

As you all know i'm a die-hard fan of the original series and have
seen the entire thing thru about 5 times and collect them on dvd. The
movie has been trying to get made in one form or another for well over
2 decades or so, so to see it hit the screen at all was wonderful. All
of the actors were brilliant but extra big kudos for Helena Bonham
Carter as Dr. Julia Hoffman. Filling the shoes of the late, great
Grayson Hall is no easy task. Depp made a supurb Barnabas and he read
every line as if it were a love letter to the source material. While
there were 1225 episodes of the show, they did pretty well cramming
the storyline of an approx. 200 or more episode story arc into 2
hours.

On many levels they were faithful and true to the spirit of the
original. A few reviews have said it felt disjointed as if none of the
characters were as involved with each other as they should have been.
But then again.. it is based on a 1/2 hour daytime soap opera- so the
small bits here and there felt episodic.. much like a series. So that
i liked. The humor comes in bits- it's not a comedy per se, but a bit
of a melodramatic thriller. Not too heavy on the gore and humor but
alot of character development and Gothic atmosphere. Most of the humor
came from the "fish out of water" scenario of Barnabas awakening in
1972 after 200 years.
The visuals were terrific as in every Tim Burton film- but easy on the
CGI. They didn't over-do it.

Some of the twists i didn't care for but some i did and felt it could
have been expanded even further. I was going out of my way to avoid
spoilers but someone walking out of the previous screening screwed
that up for me (go back to the "other people piss me off" part of the
review). The climax needed help. Though it was a great ending to a
very decent movie, it could have used a "ghost writer" (like ME!) to
help tie up ends more true to the original. Plenty of room for a
sequel which is no surprise considering how much they have to pull
from. All in all- it was a VERY fun ride i gotta say.
I give it 4 out of 5 Monkey Paws up.. and yes, will be buying the Blu
Ray.
Happy Friday folks! Go catch a matinee if you're a DS fan or even just
a Burton/Depp fan..it's worth it.

[ma...@rightbrainpro.com]

I watched it yesterday and didn't think it was as bad a predicted. I
grew up with this show, literally.
I watched it from '67 on and it represented about the only highlights
in an otherwise bland childhood.
The trailer sold this as a silly comedy and it was anything but. I
think all the plot and character elements
remained true to the campy spirit of the original show. I liked the
ending, too, as it wasn't as overdone as I thought it would be for a
Tim Burton film.
There was no way that this could be done as the original show. Even
House of Dark Shadows was not an exact copy of the show,
even though the same actors appeared. The DS of 2012 is not a classic,
but it doesn't embarrass the legacy of the show. I don't Dan Curtis
would have
objected too much to it after realizing you can only remake the same
story the same way on a very limited basis. I'd really like to see the
2004 DS pilot now and
make comparisons to the 1991 version.