Toon-arama: Frankenweenie (2012)

by tryanmax

In 1984 while working for Disney, Tim Burton created a half-hour, black & white, live-action film about a boy’s love for his dog as perhaps only he could imagine it. In a tale closely following the 1931 Universal Frankenstein, young Victor’s dog Sparky gets hit by a car, so he takes inspiration from his science class to bring the beloved pet back to life. Burton was fired from Disney for his efforts.

Twenty-eight years later, Disney invited him back to expand the project into a full-length, stop-motion feature.

With as much time as Burton has spent focusing on remakes and re-imaginings lately, it feels very refreshing to see him put out something of his own again, even if it is a reworking of his own material. Frankenweenie is possibly his best effort since the 1990s. Still, he’s not entirely out of the derivative woods with this one, either.

The heart of Burton’s tale remains the same, but the embellishments are plenty. This time, when Victor’s schoolmates discover what he has done they don’t react with horror. Instead, they launch into a sort of sci-fi arms race, spurred on by the prospects of winning a trophy at the upcoming science fair. Each attempts (and succeeds) to bring a deceased pet back from the grave with a wide array of monstrous results. These macabre experiments happen to coincide with the town of New Holland’s Dutch Days festival, which the children’s monsters set about terrorizing. It is up to Victor and Sparky to put a stop to the chaos they helped create.

The twist on Frankenstein is, of course, the primary gimmick. I don’t fault Burton one iota for that. But what separates this self-remake from the original more than the runtime or change of medium is the barrage of other film references this movie is packed with. Some of them, like E. Gore and the Bride-of-Frankenstein poodle, are essential. Others are central to the plot: all the kids’ creations pay tribute to classic monsters, the Mummy, the Wolfman(rat), the Invisible Man (goldfish), even Gamera (the turtle-monster from the Godzilla films).

Beyond that, the references are laid a little too thick and actually become distracting. The plot is not hard to follow, but the viewer is still pulled away with all the “what’s that from?” moments. Oh, and did I mention that, in addition to classic horror tributes, Burton also nods to his own prior work and whatever else he fancies? Of course, younger viewers wouldn’t know many of the more obscure references. (Do kids today even know who the Burgermeister is?) For them, the movie is good fun with some mild thrills.

It’s almost impossible to comment on the quality of the animation. It is, in a word, perfect. Taking a lesson learned from Corpse Bride—that stop-motion can actually be too fluid (many critics and fans were convinced it was CGI)—Burton deliberately chose to make this film’s animation slightly more crude, to charming effect. The technique is paired with black & white photography which, as far as I know, hasn’t been done since it was the only option, and the film is set in the same indistinct mid-20th century setting that some of Burton’s earlier films resided in. Once again, Burton teamed up with Danny Elfman for the musical score. While I can’t say that this score left any particular impressions on me, it is suited to the action and helps drive the pace. In combination, the aesthetic choices achieve a sense of timelessness that suits the film well and portends for it a good future.

All in all, Frankenweenie is a return to form for Burton. For fans who fell in love with Edward Scissorhands and Beetlejuice, this is a long overdue propitiation.

(BTW, the 1984 original short is, inexplicably, not included in releases of the full-length feature. Instead, it is included with The Nightmare Before Christmas. Oh, and HERE if you’re interested.)