Frankenweenie – no dogs go to heaven

A boy and his undead dog

A few weeks back the classics of Universal horror were given a high-profile high-definition release, and the timing was curiously coincidental. The last time Universal brought out a massive repackaging of their classic horror collection, then on DVD, it was to coincide with the theatrical release of their ridiculous horror/adventure movie hodgepodge Van Helsing back in 2004. If one were to seek a current correlation, the Universal Monsters Blu-ray collection may have been timed to coincide with the improbable release of three children’s movies drawing on classic horror elements in barely a month; ParaNorman, Frankenweenie and Hotel Transylvania.

Of these three, ParaNorman is the only released by Universal, and is also the least directly influenced by the classics of the 1930s – it pays far greater homage to American and Italian zombie movies of the ’70s. Because of this, the timing of this release of the Universal classics does not appear to have any link to this triumvirate of pre-teen horror, but it is nice that children leaving the cinema after these films asking their parents about the monster movies of the past can have their questions readily answered. And of the three none has more references to be addressed than Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie.

A feature-length animated remake of a half-hour short film Burton made at Disney in the mid-’80s, Frankenweenie sees the director return to his secure footing in suburban gothic, and it is easily his strongest film since 2003’s Big Fish.

The film tells the tale of young Victor Frankenstein, a regular all-American kid with a knack for invention, who turns to super-science when his beloved pet dog Sparky is struck by a car. Using his homemade lab to channel his town’s freak lightning storms, he manages to revive the dead pooch, after a little stitching of course. Frankenstein’s cuddly monster quickly becomes the envy Victor’s classmates, who seek to produce some supernatural experiments of their own.

Shot in atmosphere-defining black and white, with pale, gaunt stop-motion figures, Frankenweenie is visually the perfect homage to those classic horror movies, despite its suburban school setting. The town the film is set in, New Holland, seems named solely for the purpose of excusing the windmill perched upon its tallest hill, which serves as a location for the film’s denouement just as it did in James Whale’s Frankenstein. The references become increasingly obscure and clever. Victor’s hunchbacked classmate Edgar is the obvious Igor stand-in, but his classmates all resemble characters and actors from classic horrors, while his science teacher, modelled on horror master Vincent Price, is voiced by Martin Landau, who in Burton’s magnum opus Ed Wood played the original Dracula, Bela Lugosi. Finer still, goth-girl-next-door Elsa Van Helsing (voiced by one-time Burton go-to girl Winona Ryder) refers both to the hero of Dracula as well as to Elsa Lanchester, who played the Bride in Whale’s Bride of Frankenstein – when Elsa’s female poodle receives a jolt from the electrified Sparky, she is left with the Bride’s trademark streaks in her poufy mane.

Martin Landau as Vincent Price as science teacher Mr. Rzykruski

Sweet and sometimes very funny, Frankenweenie is oddly at its weakest when focusing on Victor’s relationship with Sparky. Only so many limbs can fall off before the re-animated dog joke runs thin, while Victor’s creepy classmates and straight-laced parents steal the limelight. The film’s finest and funniest scene features a PTA meeting in which the eccentric, ghoulish science teacher is asked to account for his students’ increasingly odd behaviour, and he attempts to calm the parents by assuring them he only wants to fill their heads with knowledge – cracking their heads open and getting at their brains. The metaphor goes down poorly.

The stop motion, similar but less overtly gothic than that used in Burton’s troubled Corpse Bride, is largely pleasing to behold, and there are a handful of clever scene transitions that elevate this above standard children’s fare. Danny Elfman’s score however is less than memorable, and at one stage seems to awkwardly and unknowingly plagiarise his own Batman score.

Descending into too much mayhem in its final act, and hardly vigorous in pursuing conclusions to its subplots, Frankenweenie still hits all the right notes for a family-friendly comedy adventure. Due to its subject, its audience will be small, but many who see it will be inspired to learn more about Hollywood’s classics of horror, and there is a sense here that that is all Burton wanted. It’s a welcome return to his roots for Burton, a filmmaker who had for so long become lost in his own meandering fantasy. Just don’t expect it to last.

3/5

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The Cabin in the Woods – Review

It's twisty

(Disclaimer: since the spoiler police are out in force, I will make it clear that the following review gives away minor plot points, or “spoilers”, from the first 20 minutes or so of the film. None of the major revelations or twists are revealed, only a basic sense of what makes this film noteworthy. If you wish to see this film tabula rasa, turn back now…)

On paper, comedy and horror should mix about as well as an Adam Sandler cameo in The Wire, and yet for generations now writers have seen the uses of this unlikely genre clash. James Whale’s Bride of Frankenstein (1935) is as much a camp comedy classic as it is a commentary on the folly and hubris of man. Comedy in horror can lull you into a false sense of security, or calm you down after a fright. It can satirise and scrutinise. Sometimes it’s the horror itself that is funny. Almost 80 years after Bride of Frankenstein, through countless B-movie pastiches, The Evil Dead, Scream and the Final Destination movies, we come at last to The Cabin in the Woods.

Co-written by Joss Whedon, who altered the layout of modern horror with Buffy the Vampire Slayer through its post-feminist heroine and pop-culture-obsessed demons, this on-the-surface by-the-numbers scary movie was always going to be a clever beast; perhaps a little too clever for its own good. But throw in co-writer and first time director Drew Goddard, who penned several episodes of Buffy and Lost as well as giving a failed defibrillation to the monster movie genre with Cloverfield, and this ultra-self-aware horror pastiche takes on a life of its own. Like Doctor Frankenstein, Whedon and Goddard struggle to control the monster they have created.

The plot thickens... sexily!

The writer duo revel in horror movie clichés. Five attractive college kids take a break for the weekend to party at a secluded cabin that is as inviting as it is spine-chillingly terrifying, à la The Evil Dead. But there’s something very new in this film, too. Elsewhere, in a high-tech facility – or what might have passed for a high-tech facility in the early ‘90s – a pair of technicians settle in for a busy weekend of their own. When the horrors start befalling the unfortunate youths, the mysterious technicians are able to witness it all through Big Brother-like hidden cameras. Soon they’re placing bets on what gruesome fates will befall the victims. But why?

Twistier than a giant cobra, The Cabin in the Woods relishes in sending up the horror genre. The college kids begin the film with modest character profiles: Chris Hemsworth plays buff group leader Curt, who is also an A-grade student on a sociology scholarship; Kristen Connolly is Dana, the cutesy one who has just ended an inappropriate relationship with one of her lecturers. But as the film goes on, the characters all descend into horror movie clichés: Curt becomes an alpha-male anti-intellectual bully; Dana becomes meek and sexually conservative. The opposite seems to happen to Marty (Fran Kanz), who starts out the ultimate horror movie trope, the stoner kids, all puffs and quips. Against type, he is the first to become alert to the fact something very strange is happening in the cabin.

"Oh shit, we're in a horror movie, aren't we!?"

The most fun happens at the facility, where the technicians (almost forgotten one-time Oscar nominee Richard Jenkins (The Visitor?) and The West Wing’s Bradley Whitford) switch between discussing their curious work and banal topics such as how to baby-proof an apartment. When two of the inhabitants of the house begin to have sex, the technicians frustratedly question whether or not the camera angles will allow them to see breasts – a question raised millions of times by adolescent-minded males of all ages while watching horror movies.

After cleverly establishing itself in the first act, The Cabin in the Woods stumbles into average horror movie territory in its midsection – it cannot parody without falling prey to the necessary beats and rhythms of the genre. The film is redeemed in spades however by its unpredictable, inspired and hysterically manic final act. To say any more would be to spoil one of the most unexpectedly surprising sequences you will see this year.

There’s plenty of the signature Whedon wit on display, and some pleasingly nasty horror too. The film may not be the deconstructionist masterpiece that early reviews might have you believe, but it is fun and smart and a worthy entry in the list of great revisionist horror movies. Its finest achievement is the sly suggestion that every horror film ever made has had its own pair of technicians puppeteering events. In that way, Cabin in the Woods has really left its mark on the genre.

3/5

(originally published at http://www.filmireland.net)