LOS ANGELES—It's been four decades since Dark Shadows was an afternoon TV soap opera, but for Tim Burton, who was a child at the time, the show was a profound influence. When he and long-time collaborator Johnny Depp began to talk about it, they came to the conclusion that they had to take it to the big screen, with Burton directing and Depp resuscitating the role of vampire Barnabas Collins.

In a Los Angeles hotel room, Burton says that he knew it would be difficult to interest a studio in making a film out of a show that had gone off the air in 1971. He felt that the key would be to find actors who could bring some gravitas to roles that were originally created for a soap opera. The movie, which is currently playing in Vancouver, costars Michelle Pfeiffer, Jonny Lee Miller, Chloë Grace Moretz, and Gulliver McGrath as Barnabas's distant relatives, with Helena Bonham Carter playing a live-in psychiatrist and Eva Green as a woman from Barnabas's 18th-century past who is still a threat in 1972.

“We couldn't really say to the studio, ‘We want to do weird soap-opera acting.' It was an odd challenge, but that was why we were so grateful to the cast, because even those who didn't know the show kind of got into the spirit of it. It had more of a soap-opera structure, which is a tricky thing. We all recognized that part of the appeal was the weird nature of all the elements that went into the series. It was on in the afternoon and it was very serious, and there were certain elements that we loved but we couldn't adapt them to the film. So the biggest challenge was to get the acting tone right.”

Burton says that in order to assure that the audience would know they were in 1972, the soundtrack had to fit the setting. “I just remember being sick that year and hearing music on AM radio over and over again. The quality of music went from cheesy pop to hardcore stuff, so it was a weird year for music. I remember Alice Cooper [who has a cameo in the film] being a big influence on me at the time. He still looks the same, which is really scary.”

As a homage to the series on which the film is based, Burton actively sought out original cast members for cameos. He brought back original Collins family members David Selby, Lara Parker, Kathryn Leigh Scott, and original Barnabas Jonathan Frid, who died this past April. They play guests at a party thrown by the Collins family and were dressed in the costumes they wore in the 1970s. Burton says that he, Depp, and Pfeiffer, who was also a fan of the series, were happy that the circle was complete.

“We knew that part of the reason we were there on-set was because they had inspired us, so it was nice to see them there, dressed in their 1970s clothes.”

Watch the trailer for Dark Shadows.