Frankenweenie review

Tim Burton’s finest, freshest film in ages

Why you can trust GamesRadar+ Our experts review games, movies and tech over countless hours, so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about our reviews policy.

Just as scientists might be frowned on for attempting to reanimate the dead, so revisiting old haunts and highs is thought to be A Bad Idea for filmmakers.

Reversed momentum reeks of creative stagnation and soft nostalgia, the argument goes; worse still, it can expose the gap between the talent someone was and the reduced version they’ve become.

Luckily, Tim Burton must have binned that memo.

His re-imaginings of other people’s projects often disappoint; his stop-motion rethink of his own 1984 coming-of-age short is, on the other hand, a confounding delight and worthy winner of the 2012 London Film Festival’s opening slot.

Warm, witty, purely pleasurable and unusually personal for a studio film, it doesn’t just reacquaint Burton with the material, monsters and movies that made him: it reacquaints us with the Burton who seemed such a crazy-haired bag of goth-lite giggles and outsider-geek love a decade or so back.

Burton echoes his two best films early. The opening plays like Ed Wood replayed with puppets, as young filmmaker Victor (voiced by Charlie Tahan) shows his parents the amateur monster movie he’s made with the help of his dog Sparky.

Victor’s attic room could have been rented from Edward Scissorhands , the reference reverberating as we meet Victor’s suburban, hedge-trimming neighbour Mr. Burgemeister (Martin Short) and his science teacher Mr. Rzykruski (Martin Landau), whose lecture on lightning habits will have plot implications.

We’ve seen this world before, but the child’s-eye view justifies and refreshes the Burton-ian eccentricities that looked forced in Dark Shadows .

With the world still alien enough to seem skewed for kids this age, Burton makes sense of oddball character portraits like Cher-haired Elsa Van Helsing (Winona Ryder); the ‘weird girl’ (Catherine O’Hara) who peddles prophecies from looking at kitty crap; and Edgar (Atticus Shaffer), who resembles something knocked up from actor Dwight Frye and a few spare teeth in James Whale’s Frankenstein.

Lent emphasis by clear, direct black-and-white images, the bulging eyes add dashes of apposite oddness: staring at you in the unnerving manner that only kids have, their flouting of realism becomes persuasive when viewed from the right pint-sized perspective.

Equally, the 3D is properly integrated.

Burton imbues his extra dimension with resonance, whether tracing a lightning strike’s path or following the curve of Victor’s huge strike at baseball.

The latter trajectory is multi-layered, charging the 3D with the thrill of success and the comedown of consequence – inadvertently causing Sparky’s demise, Victor’s moment of glory steers the plot into the E.T .-sweet spin on Frankenstein suggested by the title.

That title tells you what’s coming next even if you haven’t seen the original short, posing predictability problems that are resolved with flair.

The extended offspring of a 30-minute film ought to flag at feature length. But Burton and scriptwriter John August conjure enough kiddy-sized horror and heart to keep Frankenweenie alive.

Burton draws his world with palpable affection, generating warmth from the characterisation of Victor’s caring, bumbling parents and embracing sentiment in a teary instance of puppy-love hewn from E.T. and fairytales.

The feelings never seem ersatz; mildly macabre mirth, meanwhile, sees off any risk of mushiness.

When Sparky gets a second leash of life, set-pieces involving water, flies, ears and baby dummies provide yucky yucks.

Some lovely shadow-play involving a goldfish follows as other kids piggyback on Victor’s fledgling career as Frankenstein’s son.

There’s even a hint of canine necrophilia planted, cueing a cute reference to Bride Of Frankenstein .

The Bride nod is one of many valentines to other films pumping through Frankenweenie ’s veins, a passion for movies propelling it to a finale stuffed with Burton-ian business.

Without giving too much away, the climax plays like The Cabin In The Woods for kids, brimming with Mummy gags, Gremlins gags, mutant turtles, hairy hybrids, a rodent that gives The Amazing Spider-Man ’s mighty mouse a run for its money and more.

It’s an Easter egg parade for film-lovers, doing for classic Hollywood horror what The Artist did for silents.

Along the way, Danny Elfman’s score and a lightning-conducting bat-kite seem to drop sly nods to another of Burton’s early career peaks.

If Burton is revisiting old haunts in a bid to reignite the spark he once had, the wonder of it is that this potentially self-indulgent endeavour actually works: here, he’s marshalled the fun, feeling and film-ophilia needed to galvanize a career that – while far from dead – was starting to show a few wrinkles.

A sequel to Beetlejuice is being penned. Suddenly, raising that old ghost doesn’t seem like such a bad move after all.

Freelance writer

Kevin Harley is a freelance journalist with bylines at Total Film, Radio Times, The List, and others, specializing in film and music coverage. He can most commonly be found writing movie reviews and previews at GamesRadar+. 

Latest in Action Movies
Patrick Stewart as Professor X in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
The classic Fox X-Men are returning in Avengers: Doomsday, and I've got a really bad feeling about this
Wyatt Russell, Sebastian Stan, Hannah John-Kamen and David Harbour in Thunderbolts
The new Thunderbolts teaser namedrops the Avengers twice, less than a day after the cast was confirmed for Doomsday
Thor and Loki in Thor: Ragnarok
After 15 years in the making, Thor and Loki's reunion in Avengers: Doomsday could be the perfect MCU conclusion for the characters
Jason Statham in A Working Man
Jason Statham and The Beekeeper director's new movie co-written by Sylvester Stallone debuts to mixed reviews with a divisive Rotten Tomatoes score
Heath Ledger as Joker in The Dark Knight
17 years after The Dark Knight was released, Michael Caine recalls being "floored" and "terrified" by Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker
WandaVision episode 8
Robert Downey Jr's WandaVision Easter egg in the Avengers: Doomsday announcement has me thinking Scarlet Witch will be in the movie after all
Latest in Reviews
Razer Monitor Stand Chroma on desk with blue lighting reflecting off surface and Alienware gaming monitor on top.
Razer Monitor Stand Chroma review: “a pretty but flawed premium RGB riser for your gaming desk”
Image of the Corsair Virtuoso Max wireless headset sitting on top of a gaming PC case taken by writer Rosalie Newcombe.
Corsair Virtuoso Max Wireless review - a PC headset tour de force
Zombicide box featuring stylized art of survivors fighting zombies
Zombicide 2nd Edition review: "Like a zombie flick brought to tabletop"
Razer Handheld Dock with Steam Deck sitting on cradle, pink and yellow RGB lighting on, and Alienware monitor in background with Tomb Raider Trilogy gameplay on screen.
Razer Handheld Dock review: “Your Steam Deck will ride shiny and Chroma"
Photographs of the Agricola board game in play
Agricola review: "Accurate representation of the highly competitive and often unstable world of agriculture"
Photos taken by writer Rosalie Newcombe of the Shure MV7i microphone, within a pink and white themed room.
Shure MV7i review - convenience and excellence rolled into one superb sounding package