Review: Frankenweenie

Set in the town of New Holland (no, not Australia), this film concerns a young social misfit named Victor (voiced by Charlie Tahan), and his beloved dog Sparky. He’s into science, but his dad (voiced by a possibly miscast Martin Short) urges him towards the sporting field. One baseball-cum-vehicular mishap later, and poor Sparky is dead. So what is a young, scientifically-minded social misfit to do? Well, let’s just say young Victor was very much paying attention to science teacher Mr Rzykurski’s (voiced by Martin Landau) experiments involving electricity and dead frogs. Other characters include a creepy fellow social outcast named Edgar (voiced by Atticus Shaffer), whose interest in the scientific arts come from a more unseemly place than Victor’s, and Elsa Van Helsing (voiced by Winona Ryder), the sweet girl next door. Catherine O’Hara provides the voice of Victor’s mother.

 

Not all of Tim Burton’s films have appealed to me, but I feel like we have a lot in common in terms of the kinds of films we love. We both definitely share a love of horror films both Universal and Hammer. That’s probably one of the main reasons why I found this 2012 full-length remake of Burton’s own short film from 1984. This stop-motion animated film is almost bursting at the seams with affection for both of those film companies’ horror output. Hell, it’s even in B&W (or designed to look that way, at any rate, it’s stop-motion, not cell or CG animation). The film is quite clearly a personal one for Burton (whose other films include “Batman”, “Beetlejuice”, and the underrated “Mars Attacks!”), and not just because he’s remaking something of his own. Scripted by John August (Burton’s “Big Fish”, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, and “The Corpse Bride”) from material by Leonard Ripps and Burton himself, his really feels like a Burton interpretation of a coming-of-age story, done via stop-motion animation and filtered through a Universal meets Hammer horror plot. Or to put it another way, it’s “The Wonder Years” filtered through “The Addams Family”. It’s great fun for those with similar tastes in movies, and in my view it’s Burton’s best film since “Sleepy Hollow”, in addition to being one of the best films of the year.

 

What immediately grabs you is how a lot of the characters are clearly meant to look and/or sound like horror stars (or characters) of the past, with stand-ins for Vincent Price (a character voiced by Martin Landau, who previously played Bela Lugosi in Burton’s “Ed Wood”), Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, Igor/Fritz, etc., and although Burton regular Christopher Lee is absent from the cast, even he gets a look-in via a “Dracula” film playing on TV, which is cute. You don’t have to be an old horror buff like me to get this, but it absolutely helps. Only in a Tim Burton film would the male and female child protagonists be named Victor and Elsa. Meanwhile, Mr. Whiskers is the most sinister, bug-eyed, zombified cat I’ve ever seen and a total scene-stealer. The poodle who looks like it was trimmed by “Edward Scissorhands” is amusing too (And check out that “Bride”-esque hairdo at the end!). Also, the the title dog was already unfortunate-looking to begin with, and once in re-animated form, it’s no surprise that kids in the film are frightened of it. It’s especially funny when parts keep falling off the zombified dog, and the scene where Sparky sees his new re-animated self (Frankenweenie as it were) is a terrific nod to “Frankenstein”. Perhaps best of all is the character of Edgar (AKA Edgar Gore, i.e. E. Gore), wonderfully voiced by Atticus Shaffer and clearly modelled on the Igor/Fritz character in the classic “Frankenstein” series of Universal horror films. Imagine that kid at school who always kept to himself, was frequently picked on (or at least shunned) and was probably spending a lot of time at home plotting his diabolical revenge. That’s Edgar, a wonderful cinematic creation. Also wonderfully creepy is the cat/bat hybrid that Karloff-esque Nassar (voiced by Martin Short, amazingly) creates. Seriously, that thing is gonna give me nightmares for real.

 

There’s some really incredible imagery in this (as well as visual nods to “Nosferatu” and “The Mummy”), but even the 50s-ish exterior shots of the neighbourhood are perfect All-American suburban designs. And I’m pretty sure Burton has seen a “Gamera” film or two in his time, due to the monster havoc in the final third of the film. I also assume he has seen “Ghoulies II” given the scene where a guy is beset by little gremlins out of his toilet.

 

I’m not sure this has been aimed at kids, and given the subject matter it probably shouldn’t- don’t try and resurrect your pets, kids!- but it was certainly up my alley and one of Burton’s best films in recent years (certainly better than his other film of 2012, “Dark Shadows”, though even that was better than expected). It might just be Burton’s most personal and charming film. I have no idea why it flopped, but then I love “Mars Attacks!” and enjoyed his “Planet of the Apes” quite a bit too, so perhaps I’m not the greatest judge.

 

Rating: B