ANIMATION; 1hr 27min
VOICES BY: Martin Short, Catherine O’Hara, Charlie Tahan
Shock therapy: Victor and Sparky
Freakmeister film-maker Tim Burton’s spookily quaint, black-and-white, stop-motion, 3-D animation is a Gothic playground for kids and grown-ups. Its hero, direct from Burton iconography, is spindly Victor Frankenstein (voiced by Tahan), a schoolboy outsider with bulbous, haunted eyes, friendless but for his springy mutt, Sparky. When Sparky dies, Victor is bereft and nothing his mild-mannered parents (Short and O’Hara) can say consoles him. And so it is that inspired by a science class, Victor digs up Sparky and electro-shocks him back to clumsily stitched-up life. Shades of Stephen King’s Pet Sematary, and that didn’t pan out so well, either.
Could Burton’s crazy-creepy microcosm be any cooler? The answer, of course, is no, no, no: not only does he have wiggy well and truly covered but as a love story between a lonely boy and his irreplaceable dog, Frankenweenie is 100 per cent heartfelt. Off the charts loco, but heartfelt all the same. Which has to be the very best of two uncanny worlds.
