at the 8:00pm friday new york showing i attended the theater was completely full.

in fact some late arrivers had to wander around trying to find vacant seats.

AND the business of randomly turning carolyn into a werewolf in the film's final 10 minutes is the most breathtakingly cynical piece of filmaking i've ever seen...

it was like let's throw nearly 2 hours of story continuity out the window for the greedy sake of opening up the door for a werewolf-themed sequel.

so whatever. now we can spend the next 2 years speculating on who's going to play quentin.

the first 2/3's of the film were sort of harmless entertainment. but the final 1/3 was a disaster. and the carolyn nonsense was the moment i completely shut down and stopped caring.

Michael, I like how you promptly changed your profile image back to Victoria Winters.   

as opposed to magtoria evers? micki wivans? whatever the heck her name was.

i didn't see the "magatoria" compromise as "clever" or as a "merger" so much as a negation of both characters.

she wasn't victoria, the naive girl from the foundling home trying to discover her identity, and she wasn't maggie, the apple-cheeked waitress who lived with her pop in a cottage by the sea. she was just a character made up for this movie who used those two names.

heathcote was pretty. and rather charming. and had cute style.

but i didn't "relate" to her as either character. and like the rest of the "supporting cast" her screentime was too limited to really flesh her out as a character.

i foolishly read one early review that warned of "minor spoilers"...

[spoiler]the review itself is actually one of the more complimentary but if the reviewer is to be believed(and he'd really have no reason to lie)than there is a fundamental change to one of the characters that's astonishing. i can't believe it hasn't been leaked earlier.[/spoiler]

it completely changes, and in alot of ways ruins, it for me.

and i've been something of a cheerleader.

i feel like the conversation is backtracking to where it was several weeks ago when the uber-campy trailer was first released.

since then we've seen and heard much more. none of us has seen this film, but i don't feel "alienated", or "undercutted", as of yet.

outside depp pfieffer is certainly the biggest "star" attached to the project but they are really giving her the buildup.

on the OS after the barnabas introduction liz essentially became a "reactive" character. she didn't really drive the plots but reacted or responded to what was happening with the barnabas-driven storylines.

here she seems more proactive. she's actively involved in what's happening. she's pushing the action along and not just reacting to things.

in general i'm not opposed to spoilers either. knowing a particular thing is going to happen and seeing it all play out are two different things.

when i first got into the series one of the first things i did was buy KLS's "my dark shadows memories" with it's complete episode guide and series outline and promptly read it cover-to-cover. so from near the outset i had a general overview of the series. watching the 'fountain pen' plot i knew that a vampire was going to show up a few months later. it didn't affect my enjoyment of the series in the least.

and sometimes i too check out the wikipedia entry on a film before i watch it so i know what's going on.

in terms of the film at hand there were certain things i felt i needed to know walking in. watching it blind would have been too stressful. so i deliberately read certain things i knew had spoilers so now i have that general overview.

however at this point i am becoming oversaturated with it. i don't need or want to know any more so i'll tread very lightly with future material until i see it next week.