: (Danny Elfman) Given director Tim
Burton's obsession with romanticizing the undead, it should be no
surprise that he dove off a cliff to resurrect the
late-1960's/early-1970's television series concept of "Dark Shadows."
The popular soap opera ran from 1966 to 1971 and gained a loyal
following because of its awkward but affable infusion of fantasy
elements into the otherwise stale genre. When Warner Brothers opened the
coffin in the early 2010's, Burton brought his usual cast and crew to
the party, producing a 2012 rendition that is saturated with his gothic
sensibilities and odd sense of humor. The story stays faithful the
original concept, an 18th Century fishing business and its family manor
in Maine cursed over unrealized love. In the early 1970's, the two
primary characters still alive from that product of witchcraft come into
conflict once again, bringing family members, reincarnated love
interests, and innocent bystanders into the battle of wits and death.
While the original series managed to balance its morbid and humorous
elements with finesse, Burton seems to have had difficulty achieving the
same balance, his horror inclinations arguably pushing his film too dark
for his humor to coexist in the same context. His
was met with minimal acclaim and surprisingly poor initial box office
returns, though the project, like many Burton efforts, has all the
characteristics necessary to become a future cult favorite. His previous
endeavor,
was an immediate sensation, in part
because of Danny Elfman's music for the 2010 production. The composer
continues his collaboration with Burton with a rather straight-forward
approach to
, sharing a significant amount of screen
time with numerous 1970's songs chosen for the picture. The music by
Robert Cobert for the original series popularly balanced romanticism
with eerie electronic tones, and Elfman follows a similar path while
also beefing up the orchestral horror element to match Burton's own
emphasis on violence. Elfman clearly sought to temper his own style of
fantasy writing with an early 1970's vibe, nodding to the soap opera's
origins with a glint of retro coolness and even sleaze. In general, a
veteran Elfman collector will hear nothing new in
while the bursts of horror and sound
design for the conversational scenes alternate between
The demeanor of
Dark Shadows is comprised of
Elfman's usual ensemble components, the brooding orchestra joined in the
mix by adult and children's voices (usually in a group but occasionally
highlighting one boy in typical Elfman manner), an array of electronic
effects, and a solo flute and vibraphone as the token representations of
the 1970's influence. The bass strings and low woodwinds are emphasized
heavily in the orchestral portion of the mix, the former sometimes
resounding in their meandering tones of menacing intent. Expect the
ensemble to root around in necessarily depressing minor figures for most
of the score, Elfman's employment of cooing choral accompaniment
transitioning a cue like "Vicky's Nightmare" from this routine
expression of gloom into the more attractive beauty associated with his
early years with Burton. The electronics are nebulous and inconsistent,
sometimes cool but at other times obnoxious. When Elfman uses these
tones as sound design, obvious tools of dissonant disturbance in "Hypno
Music" and "House of Blood," the result is difficult to tolerate. On the
other hand, the octave-shifting slurring of pitch heard as an accent to
some of the main theme's full performances ("Shadows - Reprise" and
"The End? (Uncut)") is quite entertaining and a better connection to
Cobert's original ideas. When the pitch reaches its two lowest octaves,
it will shake the floors and rattle the windows of anyone with a larger
sound system. Elfman also employs a thumping base effect extremely low
in the soundscape to accompany his "movement motif" in "Dumping the
Body" and "The End? (Uncut)." The 1970's duo of alto flute and
vibraphone are sufficient at their task, but they seem forced into an
environment where they aren't completely comfortable. That said, the
downward retro motif that occupies the flute, especially with the
echoing mix that is afforded to it, does yield a somewhat timeless
atmosphere to accompany the resurrection of an era past in the story. As
expected from Elfman in pure horror mode, there is a fair amount of
extremely challenging material in
Dark Shadows, the composer's
shrieking and striking walls of sound, often with violins producing
unpleasant sounds on top, basically effective but nearly insufferable
out of context. There are also more than a few cues that don't really
accomplish anything other than stewing in the background, such as the
vague 1970's atmosphere in "Lava Lamp" and the tentatively darker
version of that same tone in "Deadly Handshake." Don't be surprised if
you discover yourself skipping past these passages in the middle of the
score and missing the interludes of soft beauty, such as the brief "Is
It Her?"
Thematically, Elfman's tackling of
Dark Shadows
seems more simplistic than one might expect. The score is dominated by a
primary theme for Barnabas Collins and his family and manor's history.
The structural manipulation of this idea, outside of some flirtation
with a major key alternative of its progressions in "Dark Shadows -
Prologue (Uncut)" and, appropriately, "Widow's Hill - Finale," is
minimal, but Elfman very intriguingly references only fragments of the
idea in its many renditions, suggesting the incompleteness of the main
character. The first five notes of the theme are its core, though Elfman
sometimes drops the first one to stew on the four that revolve around
the major fifth. His secondary phrase forces deviation on this
progression, and you hear references to the theme as short as two notes
throughout the score. To hear the fullest version of the theme,
including its somewhat hysterical interval section (the three-note
rising figures here are a bit over the top), consult with "We Will End
You!" at the end of the score-only album. The theme is quite malleable,
expressed with sorrow and inflection in softer passages, a hint of
elegance in its occasional waltz-like movements, while outright stomped
with the composer's nearly
Planet of the Apes percussion in other
places. Elfman's secondary identities in
Dark Shadows aren't as
memorable but they are consistently employed. The main theme is
sometimes accompanied by the "movement motif," an accelerated rhythm of
four rising cello notes that literally propels each of its cues. While
this motif introduces the theme in earnest in the prologue and does its
duty in "Dumping the Body" and "Widow's Hill - Finale," it really shines
in the two concert-like performances of main theme in "The End? (Uncut)"
and "We Will End You!" Heard in the first minute of the long prologue
cue are the two identities for Collins' nemesis, Angelique Bouchard,
first the retro slurring of the flute (which is something of a nod to
soap opera environments in general) and then the character's
actual descending theme. The former is utilized frequently in its
readily recognizable form, though the Angelique theme is often extremely
elusive in its enunciations. Elfman applies its descending phrases
frequently, but not in ways that really stand out. His fragmentary
approach causes it to express fury late in "Dark Shadows - Prologue
(Uncut)" without associating with the character because of the
progressions the theme shares in common (understandably) with the main
theme. You do receive a somewhat self-contained, major reference in
"Burn Baby Burn/In-Tombed," though don't expect this idea to really
stick with you long.
Overall,
Dark Shadows is one of those
fascinating scores that has all the characteristics that Elfman fans
crave the most, but the composer doesn't really collect all of his ideas
and tones into one cohesive narrative. The numerous songs utilized as
source and plain soundtrack augmentation in context, along with Alice
Cooper's cameo and performance as himself in the famous party scene
(which features four of the original series' cast members, no less), may
have put Elfman at something of a disadvantage. Unlike his recent
triumphs,
Alice in Wonderland and
Real Steel, there are
issues with narrative flow evident in the meandering midsection of
Dark Shadows . As usual, though, the composer does pull things
together for his finale sequence, the duo of "Final Confrontation" and
"Widow's Hill - Finale" providing an excess of satisfying tonal
expressions of melancholy and thematic grandeur. The latter is an
especially important cue that offers the main theme in full with
agonizing emotional outreach (all the while maintaining the somewhat
creepy atmosphere of the score's prior personality). The "Dark Shadows -
Prologue (Uncut)" cue also features an abundance of this attractive
narrative flow and harmonic accessibility, including the prerequisite
organ usage. For the casual Elfman enthusiast, there will be enough of
this kind of material to achieve considerable enjoyment from the
Dark
Shadows album. If you take these aforementioned highlights and
combine them with the album's three relatively short but noteworthy,
straight-forward presentations of the main theme, you can assemble
twenty minutes of melodic and entertaining music largely devoid of
Elfman's rougher material (and the 1970's vibe, which may not appeal to
all listeners). The winner of the whole lot is "The End? (Uncut)," which
features the best of the movement motif with the octave-slurring
electronic pitch and thumping effects before launching into arguably the
most fluid performance of the main theme. The interlude sequence in that
cue pushes the movement motif into the treble for the children's choir
to perform, an oddly inverted form of Elfman's similar idea from
Scrooged and
Nightbreed. If you prefer dominant percussive
force instead of the rambling electronic accompaniment, the final cue,
"The End? (Uncut)," is a solid alternative. In all of its forms, the
main theme is rowdy fun despite its structural simplicity. The album
presentation of the score, however, will require some patience from even
a dedicated Elfman collector. The majority of the main attractions on
the product are housed in the final five tracks, and some of those that
come before will either bore or irritate. For those highlights,
Dark
Shadows is a solid three-star score, but it falls well short of its
potential to be a truly well-coordinated narrative powerhouse.
*** @Amazon.com: CD or
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