Tim Burton's 'Dark Shadows' Remake Movie Trailer Released

Tim Burton's latest movie is a remake of the late 60's-early 70's vampire soap opera 'Dark Shadows'.  And guess who stars in it... go on, guess... Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter!  Shocking.  Additionally, Eva Green, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Chloe Moretz also star.

Depp as Barnabas Collins and an uncharacteristically blonde Green as Angelique Bouchard

My first gut reaction to the trailer was, "Wow, this looks awful".  My mom was a huge fan of the original show.  I've heard her talk about it before, and have even watched a few of the original series' episodes thanks to Netflix.  Based on her recollections of the show, and the episodes I saw, I have to say that this trailer is pretty off the mark.  The original show may have been unintentionally funny at times (boom mics popping into shots, some really bad dialogue), but the show was at least trying to be a serious, scary vamp drama.  The official synopsis:

In the year 1752, Joshua and Naomi Collins, with young son Barnabas, set sail from Liverpool, England to start a new life in America. But even an ocean was not enough to escape the mysterious curse that has plagued their family. Two decades pass and Barnabas (Depp) has the world at his feet–or at least the town of Collinsport, Maine. The master of Collinwood Manor, Barnabas is rich, powerful and an inveterate playboy…until he makes the grave mistake of breaking the heart of Angelique Bouchard (Green). A witch, in every sense of the word, Angelique dooms him to a fate worse than death: turning him into a vampire, and then burying him alive. Two centuries later, Barnabas is inadvertently freed from his tomb and emerges into the very changed world of 1972. He returns to Collinwood Manor to find that his once-grand estate has fallen into ruin. The dysfunctional remnants of the Collins family have fared little better, each harboring their own dark secrets. Matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Pfeiffer) has called upon live-in psychiatrist, Dr. Julia Hoffman (Helena Bonham Carter), to help with her family troubles. Also residing in the manor is Elizabeth's ne'er-do-well brother, Roger Collins, (Jonny Lee Miller); her rebellious teenage daughter Carolyn Stoddard (Moretz); and Roger's precocious 10-year-old son, David Collins (Gulliver McGrath). The mystery extends beyond the family, to caretaker Willie Loomis (Jackie Earle Haley) and David's new nanny, Victoria Winters, played by Bella Heathcote.

Mouthful.

From the trailer, it looks like the movie ramps up the intentional comedy... which I don't like.  Once that music kicked in the trailer totally lost me.  

Depp as Barnabas Collins

I find this odd because Johnny Depp has been quoted in interviews saying he has wanted to play Barnabas Collins in a big screen adaptation for a long time.  And on a first-take, the trailer seemed to be pretty disrespectful to the source material.

But, I watched it again and paid a lot less attention to the music.  Putting that aside, the footage itself looked pretty good.  And if you ignore the framing of "Bang a Gong" and "My Everything", you can see some of the classic, creepy Tim Burton come out.

I'm willing to give this a chance.  Hopefully they downplay the uber-camp in the next trailer.  It just seemed like overkill in this one.  

And I think people are starting to get a little tired of the Burton/Depp/Bonham Carter trio.