Frankenweenie

PG87 min

Tim Burton remains one of the masters of Gothic cinema. His career has produced a collection of films indebted to the best of Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, Washington Irving, and Mary Shelley that celebrate the outcasts, misfits, monsters, and outsiders of classic horror, presented in an expressionistic visual style worthy of Caligari and Nosferatu. Frankenweenie, based on Burton’s live action short made during his early days at Disney, weaves together all these thematic and aesthetic preoccupations in a family-friendly, black and white, stop-motion reimagining of Shelley’s Frankenstein that highlights the creative synergies between horror and animation. Here Victor Frankenstein is a studious, science-oriented child, who makes his own monster movies, starring his only friend, his dog Sparky. When Sparky is hit by a car and Victor must face life without his beloved dog, Victor turns to science to rectify the situation. While the film features the electrical sparks, static, thunder and lightning of the reanimation sequence in James Whale’s classic Frankenstein, Sparky’s revival is marked not by the opening of an undead eye or the movement of the creature’s hand but the gentle wagging of a tail, bringing tears to the young Victor’s eyes. The film weaves together Burton’s love of animation and horror, interspersing references to Universal classics alongside Japanese Kaiju movies. But at its heart, it is a story about love, friendship, and loss, all embodied in the reanimated body of a child’s canine best friend. The animation is beautiful and will inspire child-like wonder, but it is Sparky who will steal your heart.