I don't honestly feel betrayed or duped - if anything I feel confused. And the current reason for that is that despite several people describing what they saw at the test screening as a comedy, there are still denials coming from people closely involved with the film and others, with them saying that it isn't a comedy. Just within the past few days such denials have come from Seth Grahame-Smith, Richard Zanuck, Tim Burton, Fangoria's editor-in-chief Chris Alexander, and even David Selby. It's like two different films exist and each camp is seeing a different version.
For the record, though, the word "funny" hasn't always been associated with the film. As I posted a few weeks ago:
back in January '08 Jim Pierson remarked in an article on the MPI Web site about how Barnabas coping with the modern world be featured in the film and it was something they had planned to do had the '04 pilot gone to series. And while he didn't use the word "funny," he did imply that there would be humor to it in the film. But I seem to recall that the first time the word "funny" was used was when Richard Zanuck used it in May '10, which not incidentally was before Seth Grahame-Smith became involved with the film (he wasn't brought on board until July)
The forum posts that detail our first surprise at that description start here:
Zanuck: "...it'll be very funny..." Whoa, that's news to me!
Though in the same interview (which is linked to in the post previous to that one) Zanuck also said that the film "won't be high camp, obviously" and "it will be scary."
Burton and Depp both claimed they were fans and that they wanted to get it "right." Based on the trailer alone, it seems their idea of doing it right is spoofing it and pointing out the absurdity of the situations. Of course, this might be WBs marketing strategy and there is likely more to it than what we see.
If we can go by everything that's still being said, there would seem to be more to it than what we're seeing in the trailer. However, there is no doubt that Burton and Depp enjoy spoofing DS and pointing out the absurdity of its situations and they haven't kept that fact a secret because all one need do is watch the videos from their appearance on
Friday Night with Jonathan Ross to see it. Initially that interview frightened me to all hell - but I put those fears aside as others and more significantly Depp made more reassuring comments. But apparently the attitude toward DS that they expressed on
Friday Night with Jonathan Ross is just as much a part of the film as those reassuring comments might be. And I've come to make my peace with that and am still trying to keep an open mind.
51 days 12 hours 59 minutes 23 seconds until the day the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows is released(ET)!!