First Trailer For Tim Burton’s ‘Dark Shadows’ Released

There were crappy copies of this floating around all day yesterday, but they were getting yanked before we could post them… also, they were really bad quality. Well, A good copy of the Dark Shadows trailer is finally out. Was it worth the wait?

Ehhhhh… I guess it depends on what you were looking for from the story. I grew up with mentions of Barnabas Collins my whole life because my mom used to watch it when she was young. I don’t remember her telling me anything this goofy.

The great news for me is that I don’t have any emotional attachment to this film like I did Willy Wonka. So… I won’t be quite as pissed if I find Dark Shadows as disappointing as I did Burton’s take on that one.

It looks like it could be fun. It’s a fish out of water story about a vampire trying to make a go of it in the 1970’s after spending 225 years locked in a box. There are plenty of opportunities for jokes and gags and it looks like there’s some action involved as well.

I’m not going to say that I’m either overwhelmed or underwhelmed by this movie right now… As it currently stands, I’m just whelmed.

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 (Johnny 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 (Eva 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 (Michelle 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 (Chloe Moretz); and Roger’s precocious 10-year-old son, David Collins (Gulliver McGrath). The mystery extends beyond the family, to caretaker Willie Loomis, played by Jackie Earle Haley, and David’s new nanny, Victoria Winters, played by Bella Heathcote.