13. Dark Shadows (2012), dir. Tim Burton

Seen on Tuesday with ms_siobhan, planet_andy and their chums Phil and Tony at the Cottage Road cinema.

I've wanted to see the American TV series this is based on ever since my mid-teenage years spent poring over a book named Horrorshows - my personal filmic and televisual Horror bible. Sadly, I've still yet to have the pleasure, but my appetite has definitely been piqued all the further by the film. Who knows - if others feel the same in its wake, maybe soon the original TV series too will find its way to British screens at last?

The film itself (like the TV series) is the story of an Addams or Munsterish family, living in a big Gothic mansion on a hill above a fishing port which they founded two centuries earlier. It's typically Tim Burtonish, in the sense of starring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter, involving almost cartoonish make-up and costumes, and mingling Gothic horror with kitsch comedy. Dear old Tim does keep on and on making the same film, but then again, it's not a bad film, and I certainly liked this iteration better than the last one of his I saw - the musically and comedically dismal Sweeney Todd. This one is vastly better musically, thanks to being set in 1972 (which for me = love), and having a period-appropriate sound-track replete with the likes of T-Rex, The Carpenters etc. It's also hugely funnier, provoking many a guffaw along our row of the cinema.

( The main cast )

( The cameos )

( The gender politics )

Click here if you would like view this entry in light text on a dark background.