First Look At Johnny Depp In Dark Shadows – Set pics show he’s as strange as you’d expect

It’s difficult not to feel that Johnny Depp sees being in Tim Burton movies as an excuse to play dress up. Burton is not only his best friend, but also the only person who’d allow (indeed, positively encourage) him to go to the costume extremes we’ve seen in the likes of Charlie And The Chocolate Factory and Alice In Wonderland.

It doesn’t appear things will be changing with Dark Shadows, as the first set pics of Depp in costume have emerged via Celebuzz, which show him looking like a sort of film noir, albino Michael Jackson. As Depp is playing a vampire in the movie, there’s a good chance the caked-on white makeup is so that his character, Barnabas Collins, can go outside during the day. It suggest he’ll look rather different for most of the film, but it’s still as odd as you’d expect for a Burton/Depp collaboration.

Here’s the synopsis of the film, which is based on a 1960s supernatural US soap opera: ‘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 Brouchard (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.’