Warner Bros. has released a series of cast interviews videos for its upcoming vampire dramedy Dark Shadows.
In the film, Jonny Depp takes on the role of Barnabas Collins, a vampire who has been trapped in a box underground for two centuries. The film combines man-out-of-time humor with Addams Family sensibilities.
Chloe Grace Moretz plays the current youngest Collins who is a typical dissatisfied teenager, and who seems like she will become the primary source for advice about our modern world for Barnabas.
Helena Bohnam Carter plays in-house psychologist for the Collins family. She seems to not know where this film falls in the genre spectrum.
We’ve also got a bevy of new clips from the film, most of which are for scenes we’ve already seen in the previews, below are a few of the more interesting ones. Skip them if you don’t want any clever moments spoiled.
This one gives us a glimpse of Carter’s character after she discover’s Barnabas’s nature:
The next shows Barnabas dealing with the film’s seeming villain, the witch who placed him under the curse of vampirism.
Finally, this one gives us a good look at the interplay between Depp and Mortez.
Here’s the theatrical trailer, in case you missed it earlier:
Dark Shadows was originally an evening dramatic television series which depicted the Collins – a dysfunctional, cursed family of some wealth in Collinsport, Maine, a small town named for their ancestors who settled the town. During each episode, the family was forced to deal with some storied supernatural threat – werewolves, mummies, etc., sort of like The CW’s Supernatural, but stationary.
It seems that the Tim Burton version has reimagined the tale nearly from scratch. Here is the long-form synopsis for the film:
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.
Dark Shadows descends on theaters May 11, 2012.
