Just the promotional pics can give one the shivers.
Johnny Depp can really make himself look awesomely creepy. (Take his role as Willy Wonka for example.) Here, his Mad Hatter looks as though he stares into your soul and watches you. The eyes, the eyelashes...
The trailer goes to show that no matter what version of the story he's in, the Cheshire Cat and his grin was, is and always will be Nightmare Fuel. More Teeth than the Osmond Family, indeed.
"To survive this place. You need to be mad... as a hatter!"
Tweedledum and Tweedledee. They're like medicine balls, except that everything about them is forced into that shape. And the eyes...
The Red Queen's castle. The moat is filled. With.BLOOD AND HEADS. At one point, shrunken Alice has to climb over and jump from head to head to get across the moat. And it is not even obvious that they're heads at first. Apparently, one of the heads was Tim Burton's.
The White Queen herself: has sworn "not to harm any living thing", but has no trouble giving the Vorpal Sword to Alice so she can harm living things. Also had no problem with using coins from a dead man's pocket, severed fingers, urine, and spit to make a potion. Also, that strange almost-black lipstick on the almost-paper-white face; one might expect her to do a Face–Heel Turn at the end and be the villain the whole time.
Anything involving the Knave and Alice is this. Especially when, after she's been identified as Alice, he mentions remembering her last visit as a tyke. This is the very next day after he cornered her in a hallway with a forceful and blatantly sexual advance.
The Jabberwocky wouldn't be right if it wasn't the most intimidating creature of them all. He has a very nightmarish introduction. Dark mist snakes along the ground and we don't know where he is. He's hidden similarly to Chernabog from Fantasia. The camera is looking at a spot, but then jerks to the side as the Jabberwocky unfurls his wings and roars. During the fight, he loudly snaps his jaws right in the camera! If Alice hadn't kept moving that probably would have been a kill bite, as the Jabberwocky's head is as big as Alice herself.
The Jabberwocky's head getting cut off. It's not that bloody but it is graphic. We even see the meaty inside of the neck and the spinal chord. The whole scene, including when the head is thudding down the steps, is censored when the movie is on any family channels.
The Hatter's head-spinning dance at the end.
The fate of the Red Queen: the White Queen decrees that she be ignored until the end of time. Humans are social creatures — being intentionally deprived of contact is truly A Fate Worse Than Death.
When Alice drinks the potion to go back home, the Mad Hatter fades into a greyish shadow, but has bright glowing eyes.
