Frankenweenie
Patchwork pet
I confess that when reading the synopsis of “Frankenweenie” (USA, 2012) I was intrigued, to see that the film was from Disney Studios, the great bulwark of children’s productions, but that the direction was by Tim Burton, best known for his works, let’s say, unconventional.
In fact, we can already feel something strange in the initial seconds of the film, when Disney’s traditional introduction, with Sleeping Beauty’s castle, loses its colors and everything happens to be darkly displayed in shades of gray.
The story takes place in a small American town, New Holland, in a not-very-defined time, probably the 50s. In it the boy Victor Frankenstein (voice d’Charlie Tahan) lives with his parents in a comfortable suburban house.
Very upheaved, the boy has no friends besides his dog Sparky, companion of all hours, and even actor of the little movies he does with an amateur camera, using the techniques of stop-motion.
The parents, however, worry about the boy’s sanity, and insist that he make new friends. While Victor attends a baseball game, Sparky is hit by a car, leaving the boy desolate.
Inconsolable, Victor is impressed when science teacher Mr Rzykruski (voiced by Martin Landau) demonstrates that electric shocks cause muscles to move, even in a dead animal.
Victor then digs up Sparky’s body, sews the pieces roughly, and subjects it to the powerful electrical discharge of rays captured during a storm. The animal comes back to life, although it now eats electricity.
But Victor’s problems begin when other kids find out what he did. Copying his procedure, each tries to redo the process with their own dead pets.
The result, however, is disastrous and the city finds itself invaded by monsters of various types, from giant turtle to a cat hybrid with a bat. While looking for a way to solve all this confusion, Victor worries about Sparky, who ran away scared.
This film had a weak box office in American theaters, even being a Disney product, and in 3D. But, this is explained first by being in black-and-white, something that American just does not hate more than film with subtitles. Also, as I mentioned at the beginning, it is difficult to understand which audience the film is directed to.
Of course, if it’s animation and it’s Disney, it’s for kids, right? Wrong. The movie is dark, deals with death shamelessly, shows cemeteries and other scary icons, and has some moments of great tension.
In fact, this film is a great tribute to horror movies, and brings an immense nostalgic load of director Tim Burton himself, author of the original idea. This same idea was used by Burton in a short film in the 1980s. The curious thing is that he had made the short for Disney, who fired him when saw how dark it was…
All the supporting characters are a lot of fun, although they have exaggerated what looks like a reduced version of the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Everyone remembers some horror movie character or old serials. Christopher Lee appears quickly, when Victor’s parents watch on TV the movie “Dracula, Father and Son” (“Dracula père et fils”, FRA, 1976).
The strange professor Rzykruski is clearly inspired by Vincent Price, another very frequent figure in the horror films of the last century. Some references are closer, like the endemic animals that resemble the “Gremlins”.
Burton also makes many references to his own works, such as “Edward Scissorhands” (USA, 1990), which was also an artificial being built with pieces, until the final scene, of the struggle in a burning mill, inspired by “Sleepy Hollow” (USA, 1999).
There are also tributes to great authors of horror books such as Mary Shelley, the creator of “Frankenstein”, whose name was used in the turtle Shelley, or Elsa Van Helsing (voiced by Winona Ryder), whose surname evokes Dracula’s great enemy, from Bram Stoker’s original book.
Technically, “Frankenweenie” is extremely well done, uniting stop-motion techniques when models are shot with small variations of position, with those of computer graphics, resulting in a party for the eyes, mainly because of the 3D display.
If there’s anyone who’s going to like “Frankenweenie” it’s certainly the movie goers who experienced this genre of film before it went into decay with the bloodthirsty “Friday the 13th,” “Panic” and “Saw”. During the session I attended, I saw several people risking a hunch about the characters on the screen, although there were those who mistook Christopher Lee for Bela Lugosi!
This film is available on the Disney Plus platform.