Does Johnny Depp Put Those Twilight and True Blood Vampires to Shame?

Check out the actor as he joins the undead ranks for Tim Burton's Dark Shadows

By Natalie Finn Sep 14, 2011 4:00 AMTags
Johnny DeppMatt Keeble/Splash News

One look at Johnny Depp all dolled up as an 18th century vampire and...well, maybe we're not quite ready to put a stake through our other undead crushes.

Then again, it's never really Tim Burton's intention to showcase Depp the heartthrob...

In their eighth go-round with Burton in the director's chair and Depp in heavy, pale makeup, the very biteable actor stars in Dark Shadows as Barnabas Collins, a dandy playboy who's turned into a vampire and buried alive by a heartbroken witch in the 1700s, only to resurface in the 1970s.

Culture shock!

But even though Barnabas finds all sorts of weirdos living in his family's decrepit mansion when he wakes up, at least that fedora and those glossy sideburns will translate well in the new millennium, right?

Dark Shadows is based on the gothic soap opera of the same name that aired between 1966 and 1971, featuring all manner of creatures of the ghoulish and beastly variety.

Eva Green, Jonny Lee Miller, Michelle Pfeiffer, Jackie Earle Haley and Burton muse-for-the-ages Helena Bonham Carter also star in the film, which is due in theaters May 11, 2012.

(Originally published Sept 13, 2011, at 6:16 p.m. PT)