Warner Bros. has released two official set photos from Tim Burton's Dark Shadows.  The film is based off the cult TV series of the same name which ran from 1969 – 1973 and centered on vampire Barnabas Collins (played by Johnny Depp) and his attempt to reintegrate with his descendants after being buried 200 years ago.  Burton and Depp decided 1972 was the right time to set the movie. Screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith explains to Empire, "1972 is right at the time when the hippie movement and all its peace and love is dying out and being replaced by this me-me-me generation in the '70s who are all about showing their wealth and having everything."  Is the film going to act like the hippie movement dying out was a bad thing?  Who likes hippies?

Hit the jump to check out the set photos as well as the College Humor video that immediately sprung to mind when I saw the photos.  The film also stars Chloe Moretz, Eva Green, Gulliver McGrath, Bella Heathcote, Ray Shirley, Jackie Earle Haley, Jonny Lee Miller, and Michelle Pfeiffer.  Dark Shadows opens May 11, 2012.

Images via Empire.

Here's the official synopsis for Dark Shadows:

In the year 1752, Joshua and Naomi Collins, with young son Barnabas, set sail from Liverpool, England to start a new life in America. But even an ocean was not enough to escape the mysterious curse that has plagued their family. Two decades pass and Barnabas (Johnny Depp) has the world at his feet—or at least the town of Collinsport, Maine. The master of Collinwood Manor, Barnabas is rich, powerful and an inveterate playboy…until he makes the grave mistake of breaking the heart of Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green). A witch, in every sense of the word, Angelique dooms him to a fate worse than death: turning him into a vampire, and then burying him alive.

Two centuries later, Barnabas is inadvertently freed from his tomb and emerges into the very changed world of 1972. He returns to Collinwood Manor to find that his once-grand estate has fallen into ruin. The dysfunctional remnants of the Collins family have fared little better, each harboring their own dark secrets. Matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Michelle Pfeiffer) has called upon live-in psychiatrist, Dr. Julia Hoffman (Helena Bonham Carter), to help with her family troubles.

Also residing in the manor is Elizabeth’s ne’er-do-well brother, Roger Collins, (Jonny Lee Miller); her rebellious teenage daughter Carolyn Stoddard (Chloe Moretz); and Roger’s precocious 10-year-old son, David Collins (Gulliver McGrath). The mystery extends beyond the family, to caretaker Willie Loomis, played by Jackie Earle Haley, and David’s new nanny, Victoria Winters, played by Bella Heathcote.

Also, here's the College Humor video that comes to mind every time I see or think of Tim Burton: