Director Tim Burton has talked about he didn't want his film to be influenced by the recent trend for "sexy" vampires – could he be talking about Robert Pattinson?

The famous director says he has been watching vampire movies since he was just five – so it seemed only natural he would tackle one of his own in the near future.

Burton explained: "You've seen every incarnation of it and I think we just sort of went for the more actor driven, the simple, you know, the simpler classic version of it.”

Dark Shadows is based on the American cult classic soap opera of the same name. It centres on Barnabas Collins, played by Johnny Depp, a wealthy man who is turned into a vampire by a witch named Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green) and then buried alive.

A couple of hundred years later poor Barnabas is unearthed by a construction crew – and suddenly finds himself back in his insular Maine home town in 1972.

Green says that Angelique isn't your stereotypical baddie: "There's something human about her.

“Her heart's been broken so we kind of understand as an audience why she behaves in such an evil way.

“She's driven by revenge. She's been rejected by the man she adores.”

Like the TV series, the film is set in the 70's – something which actress Michelle Pfeiffer adored. She admitted: "I love the seventies. I was Carolyn's age.

“I was exactly her age and definitely a handful and I love the music of the era. I love the clothes, the makeup. So I was very happy to revisit all that."

Unlike Pfeiffer, 15-year-old Chloe Grace Moretz, who plays teen Carolyn Stoddard, didn't live through the seventies, though she also loved its quirks: “I think just the music and the fashion and just the textures alone.

“Like my bedroom, you walk in and there's this purple ceiling and then there's this gigantic hanging chair and there's this yellow shag carpet and like records everywhere. It was just, seems like such a fun time," she said.

Dark Shadows is out now in UK cinemas.