My goodness, did that lady video reviewer ever miss the boat. It's obvious she's a big DS fan, but like several, she's living in the past when it comes to comparing the original to other manifestations, including this wonderful film.
She makes the point that Barnabas changed the perception of the vampire, making it a forlorn, angst-ridden creature. DS's Barnabas was the turning point. It's now been manifested in many ways, from Interview With the Vampire to True Blood and The Vampire Diaries. Oh, and don't forget Twilight (yuck). The problem is, it's been 45 years. It's a dead horse now. That's why I can't get into TB, TVD and especially - yuck again - "T." Something new, fresh and different needs to be brought onboard. To me, this film is it. It retains some of the "sympathetic, reluctant" stuff, but brings in other stuff, such as having to adapt to different times (and even a reluctant vampire will make serious mistakes in trying to hide his past and needs someone, like Elizabeth in the movie, to cover for him - the film version of Barnabas shows a different sort of weakness, that of being not always thinking, and that makes him more sympathetic).
As for HoDS, I loved it when it came out and still do. Back when I was 13 and saw it, I thought it was a masterpiece of cinema, one of the best movies ever made. Well, what does anyone expect? I was obsessed with DS and I was only 13. Now, of course, I see all the warts. The storyline was butchered by editing, and filming still couldn't escape all the Dan Curtis bloopers - even with the ability to say "cut" and try again - from microphone booms waving around in scenes and studio lights blatantly obvious in illuminating the empty swimming pool. I like that HoDS attempted to show more of what the original storyline was suppose to be, with Barnabas being completely evil from beginning to end. The original story, before it began to veer off from that because of astronomical ratings, did have a bit of trying to show a tad of sympathy for the vampire Barnabas character who had lost his girlfriend and was trying to get her back, but his ways of doing it would've hardly garnered support from anyone. The original Barnabas was a murderous stalker. Stalkers do what they do because of psychologically bent obsessions. One can spend maybe a moment "understanding," but when they abduct and murder, they lose any sympathy. That was, apparently, suppose to be the original storyline of the series, but those ratings began to push things in a different direction. Dr. "Julian" Hoffman wasn't - most likely - going to try and cure Barnabas. Dr. Hoffman was suppose to be Van Helsing, a nemisis of the vampire and both were to be destroyed while destroying each other at the end of 13 weeks. Then Jonathan Frid would have enough extra income to find a better place to reside in Los Angeles while teaching college drama classes, his "bit" role as a vampire on a now successful daily soap forgotten by his students who weren't middle-aged housewives watching "daytime dramas" when they took a break from waxing the kitchen floor.
That was all a part of the original reality, and this video vampire/DS-fan reviewer either forgot that, or didn't totally know it.
And HoDS, apparently from MGM's demands, turned what could've been a much better movie into a typical, blood-and-gore, rather than character-driven, Hammeresque film, focusing more on the Christopher Lee movies (and quite a few Roger Corman ones) popular at that time. The movie didn't have to do with great cinematic art - it had to do with getting gabillions of kids (like me) who fervently watched the show to pack theaters to keep the studio from going under. It worked. MGM is still around. It even managed to gobble up UA a few decades later.
When I saw HoDS, kids started lining up (and virtually everyone in the theater were tweens) two hours before the doors opened. There were so many, the theater allowed them to sit in crumbling balconies and box seats, highly unsafe, but back then things weren't as restrictive when it came to "public safety." There wasn't a seat left. When I saw the latest film version, I and my 30+ friends was the largest group. Other than several scattered groups, the theater was empty. This was on the second day. Where was everybody? And there were no kids, not a one. That's because HoDS catered to a different demographic and with its blood-and-gore and minimized story and characterization, that's what we tweens wanted to see back then. Our parents didn't allow us to see Taste the Blood of Dracula because it was too bloody-and-gory and it played only at night.
The lady video reviewer is comparing apples to oranges. I didn't want a rehash of HoDS (the '91 prime-time remake was a version of that, and it failed in celluloid expectations). I didn't want a re-telling of even the original, with all its illogical faux-pas'. And I certainly didn't want another version of TB, TVD and - one more time, yuck - "T." I wanted my DS done with a different, bold and fresh take. And that's what I got. And I loved it.
Gerard
Topic: Depp/Burton DARK SHADOWS Is In Release!! (Read 350600 times)