'Dark Shadows' Character Posters And International Trailer (With Bonus Alice Cooper)

What to make of Dark Shadows? Is Tim Burton's adaptation of / sequel to the '60s supernatural soap opera itself a sort of giant melodrama, or a supernatural comedy, or something else? Or all of the above? 'All of the above' is what Burton would have made twenty years ago, and there are certainly moment sin the first US trailer for the film that suggest that Burton is working in closer to his own classic mode than we've seen from him in a while. Other jokes suggest... well, something not quite that enticing.

Now we've got a set of character posters promoting the film, and they give many of the characters, played by Johnny Depp, Eva Green, Michelle Pfeiffer and others, a nice coat of vampiric white face paint. The best of the images is the one for Jackie Earle Haley, in which he continues to look like a live-action Groundskeeper Willie.

Check out the posters below.

The film also stars Chloe Moretz, Bella Heathcote, Helena Bonham Carter, Jonny Lee Miller and more. Dark Shadows opens on May 11th. Before we get to the oh-so lengthy synopsis, here's an international version of the trailer that appeared a few days back. It is almost identical to the US version, but adds Alice Cooper at the end. Sure, why not?

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.

[Empire]