Stop-Motion December: Rebecca Fisher Discusses “Frankenweenie”
Introduction:
The long history behind Frankenweenie is of particular interest to anyone settling down to watch the film, as it reveals plenty of things about the career trajectory of Tim Burton and his distinctive love of the macabre.
The story originated as a live-action short film directed by Burton back in 1984. As both a parody and a homage of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, it told the story of a young film-maker whose dog is tragically run over by a car, who goes on to resurrect his beloved pet with electricity gleaned from household appliances. For his efforts, Burton was fired from the Walt Disney Company after executives deemed the film far too scary and inappropriate for its target audience.
In hindsight it’s clear that Burton had the last laugh: between then and now he’s had a prolific career as a Hollywood director, though it wasn’t until 2012 that he returned to his initial “franken-dog” premise. Remaking it as a 3-D stop-motion animated film, Burton expands on his original story, adding new characters and a myriad of subplots. It ended up winning the Saturn Award for Best Animated Film, and just to top it off, was released by the Walt Disney Company to positive reviews.
Premise:
Victor Frankenstein is a ten year old science-whizz and budding film-maker living in the quiet suburban town of New Holland. Though he has plenty of classmates, he prefers the company of his dog Sparky, the star of all his home movies.
Then one day disaster strikes, and Sparky is hit by a car after running out onto the road in pursuit of a baseball. Inspired by a demonstration by his science teacher, in which he’s shown how electrical currents can galvanise muscles even after death, Victor digs up Sparky and reanimates him in his makeshift attic laboratory, using the power of a lightening storm and a variety of kitchen appliances.
Victor brings Sparky back from the dead
He’s determined to keep Sparky a secret at all costs, but his Igor-like classmate Edgar Gore soon catches on and blackmails Victor into reenacting the experiment with a dead goldfish. Soon the entire class is clambouring for reanimated pets, though the consequences are more than they bargained for.
Story:
Many of Tim Burton’s trademark themes are at work throughout the course of the story: the eccentric outsider, the small-mindedness of authority figures, the cost of dabbling in things you don’t fully understand, but it’s presented through a more child-friendly lens with an up-lifting ending.
Still, it’s not afraid to take some risks. As with the short film, it is shot entirely in black and white, and filled to the brim with in-jokes and shout-outs to old horror films that will probably go way over the head of many younger viewers. At one point Victor’s parents watch clips of Christopher Lee in Horror of Dracula on the television, at another a neighbourhood poodle gains a white streak in her fur reminiscent of The Bride of Frankenstein.
Victor’s classmate Nassor looks just like Boris Karloff whilst his science teacher Mr Rzykruski resembles Vincent Price. Then there’s Edgar, obviously a homage to the hunchbacked lab assistant of the old Frankenstein films, and Elsa van Helsing, whose last name is obviously a nod to Abraham van Helsing from Dracula, but whose appearance (right down to the voice acting by Winona Ryder) is that of Lydia Deetz from Beetlejuice.
Oh, and you’ll realize why the film is set in a place called New Holland when the climax rolls around. Really, you could write a very long list of all the allusions to other iconic sci-fi horror films of the 1950s that have proved an inspiration to Tim Burton over the years and which are honoured throughout the course of Frankenweenie.
Characters:
It comes as no surprise that any Tim Burton film will be populated by a range of eccentric characters. Victor’s parents (voiced by Martin Short and Catherine O’Hara) actually manage to be surprisingly supportive and down-to-earth, leaving it to Victor’s school friends to bring the quirkiness. From the finger twitching of Edgar to the high-pitched voice of the girl known only as “Weird Girl” (perhaps due to her habit of reading omens in her cat’s litter box), all of them are depicted in a distinct macabre style involving giant saucer eyes and elongated limbs.
Victor makes for a sympathetic protagonist, rather like Norman of ParaNorman in his ability to keep an open mind, as well as Coraline in regards to his tenacity. If anything, I felt that some of the faces were a bit expressionless at times, but the liveliness of the puppetry and the genuine warmth that exists between Victor and his beloved Sparky makes up the for it. At its heart this is a story of the bond between a boy and his dog, which Burton himself called the first great love of any child’s life.
Conclusion:
And so we come to the end of what was initially meant to be Stop-Motion October, but has continued well into November as well. My purpose was to hopefully garner new appreciation for this art form and the stories that it’s helped tell over the years, for it’s been my experience that any film that uses stop-motion animation as its medium will feature the highest quality of talent and provide the most entertainment value. Hopefully you’ve been able to discover a few new movies to enjoy.
Next Time:
It’s back to our usual exploration of various television shows with a sci-fi or fantasy bent, beginning with Once Upon a Time, currently in its third season. The town of Storybrooke holds a secret: it’s actually the home of hundrds of fairy tale characters living under a curse. Snow White, Prince Charming, Rumplestiltskin, Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretal – they’re all here, but they’ve each forgotten their true identities. The only one who can break the spell is Emma Swan, the long-lost daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming… but to do that she first needs to start believing in the truth about who she really is.
About The Reviewer:
Rebecca Fisher is a graduate of the University of Canterbury with a Masters degree in English Literature, mainly, she claims, because she was able to get away with writing her thesis on C.S. Lewis and Philip Pullman. She is a reviewer for FantasyLiterature.com, a large website that specializes in fantasy and science-fiction novels, as well as posting reviews to Amazon.com and her own LiveJournal blog.
To read Rebecca’s detailed introduction of both herself and the series, as well as preceding Big Worlds On Small Screens reviews, click on: