So I’m watching Frankenweenie, and I’m struck by how dark the whole thing is. Some of this has to do with the fact that it’s in black and white. The animation style also helps with this dark feeling – I was sort of surprised at this actually, where there was a lack of emotion demonstrated in the characters faces. It’s almost as if the fairytale setting of Edward Scissorhands was transposed or used as a jumping off point for Frankenweenie, and the pallor of that film’s title character was used as a template. I’m not saying the stop motion animation is sub-par, but there’s just an eeriness to it that helps to set a dark mood.
Frankenweenie is the full-length feature version of Tim Burton’s 1984 short. Both are black and white, both are the same basic story about a boy and his dog and the love they have for each other. It’s not a spoiler to mention the basic plot points of Victor’s dog, Sparky, getting hit by a car and dies. Through an electrical experiment Sparky comes back to life. It is the conditions under which he is brought back to life and the community’s reaction where the narrative comes to life.
While it is a dark fairy tale, there’s plenty of humor as well. It is interesting how Tim Burton’s vision really lends itself to stop motion animation. Sure, it can be done with live actors and perhaps a lot of computer trickery, but there is a practicality and immediacy to shooting it all right in front of the camera and having it look exactly how it is intended as it is being filmed, without a lot of post-production gimmicks.
As an expansion on the original short, Frankenweenie works great. It is also very good movie if you haven’t seen the original short. In either case, it is presented on the Blu-ray as a bonus feature. It was (well, still is) made available on VHS as well as a bonus feature on Nightmare Before Christmas, along with Vincent, Tim Burton’s other short. It was fun, actually, watching the short and feature back to back, noting how much was retained, not only thematic and stylistically, but with regards to several shots.
None of the cast from the original short is brought in to this newer version. Martin Short does great as dad, but to me Daniel Stern was perfect. There is an expanded roster of characters to fit the longer narrative, and it works very well. Some great archetypes are present, including an homage to Boris Karloff.
The special features are a bit… well, I expected more. There’s the 3D version of the film on Blu-ray, a Blu-ray disc with the special features, a DVD of the film with only a smaller selection of features (even the short is missing there) and another disc for the digital copy. First off, why are we getting a DVD and digital copy on separate discs? Come on Disney, you’re better than this. And why are the discs stacked one on top of another? This is just begging to have kids mishandle them and attract scratches.
The two featurettes are decent, but could have been grated together. It’s not a bad package, really, but I did expect more. An audio commentary perhaps, or a picture in picture with storyboards and maybe a scene comparison of the two versions. Still it’s worth picking up. As for appropriateness for kids, I’m not going to let my 5 year old watch it because it might get a little bit too intense for him – there are some scary bits towards the end. Worth picking up though, definitely.
And that music video by Plain White T’s covering Ramones “Pet Cemetary”? I’m disappointed it wasn’t done in stop motion. And it’s a pretty straightforward cover too. At least the new short is worth checking out.