Now, before we get all manic about this, we reckon it’s important to remember that oftentimes, the tone of a trailer can be deceptive. One only has to watch the desperately mawkish trailer for the upcoming (and brilliant) 21 Jump Street to know that we can’t always judge a film by its preview. With this in mind, we present to you the rather strange first trailer for Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows. Hey, at the end of the day, there are actual jokes in it. Which automatically makes it better than Alice In Wonderland.

Yep, it’s yet another Burton and Depp extravaganza, this time a re-imagining of a melodramatic 70s soap about a vampire who wakes up to find himself in the present day. The present day being the 70s – era most ripe for hilarious décor. Take a peek at the trailer, and see what you think:

To be honest, our first reaction is made up of mainly how relatively un-Burton the tone seems to be, despite the extremely Burton context. No gradually intensifying Elfman score, no foray into a fanciful Other-World, with more of a focus on throwaway gags and pop-culture references than creating a suitably strange atmosphere. To be honest, it reminds us more of the recent trailer for Mirror Mirror than anything else. And things that remind us of the Mirror Mirror trailer are, generally speaking, not good things.

Still, it is always good to be reminded that Burton and Depp can do more than just paint things black and white and stare depressed and anaemically at Helena Bonham Carter. This might not be quite what we expected from the pair, but I reckon we might have to give it a bit more time – and at least a few more clips – before we start putting the nails into this vampire’s coffin.