Leicester Square was filled with piercing screams and vampires last night.
The screams were for Johnny Depp, and the vampires – well, fans dressed up like the blood-sucking creatures – were also for Johnny, as well as director Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter.
What we’re trying to tell you is, it was the Dark Shadows European premiere last night, and Jon, Tim, Helena and co-stars Michelle Pfeiffer, Eva Green, Johnny Lee Miller and Chloe Moretz were out in force to greet the fans.
So, what’s Dark Shadows all about then? heat film editor Charles Gant gives us the lowdown on Tim Burton’s new gothic soap opera…
The plot: Tim Burton casts Johnny Depp in their eighth feature together, this time as Barnabas Collins, head of a rich fishing family in 18th-century Maine. Of all the dumb luck, the pretty servant Angelique (Eva Green) whose advances he rebuffs turns out to be a witch, and he’s cursed as a vampire and buried for an eternity of lonely misery. Cut to 1972, and a construction crew unearths Barnabas, who returns to his now-shabby family home, occupied by descendants Elizabeth (Pfeiffer), her brother Roger (Jonny Lee Miller) and a child apiece.
Nestled next to big action blockbusters, Dark Shadows is fun, fresh and deeply weird.