The Salvation.

Now here’s a mouth-watering proposition: a Danish western directed and co-written by Kristian Levring, who was the fourth signatory of the Dogma95 movement, made by the Danish film company Zentropa Entertainments which was started by director Lars von Trier and producer Peter Aalbaek Jensen and which was responsible for over 70 feature films including The Hunt (2013) A Royal Affair (2013) In A Better Word (2010) Donkeys (2010) and most of Lars von Triers output. It gets even more lip smacking when you read the cast list.

 

The Husband Jon (Mads Mikkelson)

Out of the wreckage of the Danish defeat in the war of 1864 Jon (Mads Mikkelson) and his brother Peter (Mikael Persbrandt) crossed the Atlantic to forge a new future for themselves. For seven years they struggled to get a foothold in an unfamiliar land, seven years in which Jon longed for his wife Marie and their son. Seven years is a long time for any family to be apart. The year is 1871 and the country is America. 

Brother Peter (Mikael Persbrant)

The movie starts with Jon and Peter meeting the train carrying Marie and his ten-year-old son.  Peter stays in town while Jon and his family board a stagecoach that will take them to their new home on the outskirts of Black Creek. It’s when two recently released criminals board the coach that a nightmare begins that can only end in violence and death.   

Notorious Gang Leader Henry De La Rue (Jeffery Dean Morgan) 

Black Creek is run by Mayor Keane (Jonathan Pryce) who is in cahoots with an ex Injun fighter and notorious gang leader Henry De La Rue (a menacing Jeffery Dean Morgan) to buy up all the land surrounding the town. Also involved in these underhand goings on are the ineffective town Sheriff (played by Scottish actor Douglas Henshall recently seen in series one of Outlander) and De La Rue’s sister in law Madeline who was rescued from the Injuns minus her tongue (a totally delicious and smouldering Eva Green who is absolutely brilliant despite not having a line of dialogue to say)

 

Sister in Law Madeline (Eva Green)

Beautifully shot in South Africa by Jens Schlosser, this is homage to the classic western style made famous by Sergio Leone cross-fertilised with Fred Zinnermann’s High Noon (1952). A feature film so obviously made and acted with such great enthusiasm that’s its familiar format can be forgiven. Its traditionally authentic feel will keep you gripped, a Scandinavian movie experience not to be missed.

White Bird in a Blizzard.

Kat Connors (Shailene Woodley) is 17 years old when her perfect homemaker mother, Eve (Eva Green), a beautiful, enigmatic, and haunted woman, disappears - just as Kat is discovering and relishing her newfound sexuality. Having lived for so long in a stifled, emotionally repressed household, she barely registers her mother's absence and certainly doesn't blame her doormat of a father, Brock (Christopher Meloni), for the loss. In fact, it's almost a relief. But as time passes, Kat begins to come to grips with how deeply Eve's disappearance has affected her. Returning home on a break from college, she finds herself confronted with the truth about her mother's departure, and her own denial about the events surrounding it...

The synopsis is as good as it gets, going down hill from here on in. This extremely unconvincing TV type drama set in the late 1980’s relies totally on a wee twist at its conclusion to hide its rather obvious narrative. Based on a novel of the same name written by Laura Kasischke, White Bird in a Blizzard (2014) has been directed and written by Gregg Araki, who also directed and wrote the screenplay for the much better Mysterious Sin (2004) a film I would certainly recommend. This latest painfully unhurried drama is a complete let down with Eva Green miscast and Shailene Woodley’s obvious talents completely wasted. Although it was premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival it was only and not unsurprisingly given a limited release.

Dark Shadows.

An American T.V. gothic soap opera created by Dan Curtis, that run from June 1966 to April 1971, became a childhood obsession for a certain John Christopher Depp the Second and it was this same gentleman that persuaded Tim Burton, a man who has made a very successful career out of dark eccentric movies, to direct the 2012 film version of Dark Shadows.

One rather dysfunctional family.

Seth Grahame-Smith’s screenplay starts in 1750 at the Port of Liverpool where Joshua and Naomi Collins along with their young son Barnabas set sail to start a new life in America. It’s here that they build a fishing business and a town called Collinsport. We move on twenty years and find that Barnabas Collins is a very rich and well to do young man who falls in love with the beautiful Josette DuPres. This upsets the powerful witch Angelique Bouchard who has fallen for the good-looking Barnabas. She casts an evil curse that forces Josette to jump off a cliff and turns Barnabas into a vampire and then buries him alive.

Angelique Bouchard.

We are still in Collinsport but two centuries later, its 1972 and workmen are extending the Angel Bay Fisheries when they displace a tomb from which emerges Barnabas Collins: Vampire!!!!!!! After a quick snack Collins returns to his ancestral home where he finds that his once grand estate has fallen into disrepair and is occupied by the dysfunctional remnants of his once proud family and a live-in psychiatrist. Our rejuvenated vampire decides to restore his families fortunes but discovers that the fisheries business, and the town is know run by a certain Ms Angelique Bouchard.

More families should have a live-in psychiatrist?

Tim Burtons tongue in cheek gothic comedy, which brings to mind Edward Scissorhands (1990) and HBO’s True Blood, stars Johnny Depp as Barnabas, Michelle Pfeiffer as Elizabeth Collins Stoddard the family matriarch, Helena Bonham Carter as the previously mentioned live-in psychiatrist Dr. Julia Hoffman, the ever more beautiful Eva Green plays the vengeful witch Angelique Bouchard and Chloe Grace Moretz plays Elizabeth’s rebellious teenage daughter Carolyn. Both Christopher Lee and Alice Cooper, who plays himself, have cameo roles.

Fooling in love with a vampire is not always easy.

As well as a score composed by four time Oscar nominee and regular Burton collaborator Danny Elfman the soundtrack also includes several great rock and pop anthems from the likes of The Moody Blues, The Carpenters, T.Rex and Black Sabbath, with Depp chipping in on the Steve Miller track The Joker. The whole ‘look’ of the film is brilliant with some great sets from Rick Heinrich (Sleepy Hollow) and costume designs from Colleen Atwood (Alice in Wonderland). It was filmed entirely in England at the Pinewood Studios and on location. Depp’s performance as the wronged vampire is pure class and he is provided with some first rate dialog that is at the same time extremely funny and charming. In fact, although the critics reportedly said that this was not the greatest Burton/Depp collaboration, I found this wonderfully hammy nonsense to be a very agreeable evenings entertainment and can highly recommend it for a couple of hours pure escapism.