Frankenweenie

Frankenweenie

Director ~ Tim Burton

Writers ~ Tim Burton, Leonard Ripps

1984, b/w, USA

Stars ~ Shelley Duvall, Daniel Stern, Barret Oliver

Tim Burton’s 1984 short shows that his approach was already clearly determined: he’d been making shorts since the Seventies, including an adaptation of ‘Hansel and Gretel’ and ‘Vincent’, about a boy that wants to be Vincent Price and succumbing to his taste in fantasy. Burton was the one to turn to for cookie dark fantasy and made him a poster boy for fun Goths. This sensibility is perfectly epitomised in ‘Frankenweenie’s central image of what appears to be a mini-golf course in a pet cemetery.

‘Frankenweenie’ features Shelley Duvall and the kid from ‘The Neverending Story’, Barrett Oliver, and a young Sofia Coppola. There are several distinctive shots, not only the mini-windmill and the car bearing down on the dogs-eye-view, but my favourite being young Victor’s brainwave framed between two electrically stimulated frog’s legs. 

When his beloved dog is hit by a car and dies, all Victor wants is his late dog back. Through the influence of Mary Shelley, James Whale and old Universal horrors, Victor brings his dog back to life: the attic laboratory made from ordinary household appliances is a treat. Instead of defying God, Victor here is simply defying grief and the true villain being not the cute dog-zombie but he hysteria of suburban America. In that, it is very much in the trend of the Eighties that the picket fence of slick Americana being sold and dominating screens across the globe was not necessarily to be trusted. But mostly it is a fun gateway horror that packs a lot of genre vibe in its short running time.

Disney judged it too scary and fired Burton. Of course, Burton had the last laugh as his sensibility proved perfect for capturing the camp and horror of Batman. Grown in reputation, ‘Frankenweenie’ hits that sweet spot as a gateway coming-of-age horror for melancholy outsiders: grim, funny, quietly subversive, sugar-coated bad taste, a little freaky and a little innocent.

 

Frankenweenie

Director ~ Tim Burton

Writers ~ Leonard Ripps, Tim Burton, John August

2012, b/w, USA

Stars ~ Winona Ryder, Catherine O'Hara, Martin Short

In adapting his renowned short, Burton’s expansion incorporates many more horror Easter Eggs and grotesqueries, including ‘The Munsters’, ‘Gremlins’, Kaiju amongst others. It embraces the freakishness far more than the original, wallowing in the otherworldliness and excess that animation allows. This isn’t grounded in the reality at all, and yet the emotional core is still relatable as coming-of-age concerns. This time, though, it is notable that Vincent (voiced by Charlie Tahan) is less an outcast – because how could he be with this menagerie of classmates? – but a wilful loner, taking solace in his genius. And this time, there’s room to give all the other misfits their own amusing subplots: highlights being the rooftop DIY rocket and the precognitive-poop cat.

The black-and-white stop motion is gorgeous, of course, sharp and clean and excellently lit, with Burton’s designs being typically pointy, rounded, ikky-cute. Even Victor simply walking home through the suburbs in the rain is impressive as a visual. How Burton balances between the wholesome and grim is quite the marvel and at the core of his talent and crossover success.

As always, there are gruesome details, like bolts inserted into gaping scars and the patchwork zombie dog wagging his tail off. The lynch mob hysteria is somewhat toned down to greatly disapproving locals and the tone less melancholic. It may all turn out okay in the end, and there’s certainly the essence of Burton being genre comfort food, but there is always a thread of real danger with the detail and fun always beguiling. ‘Frankenweenie’ is also agreeably, declaratively pro-creativity and pro-science, as proclaimed by the Vincent Price-ish teacher Mr. Rzykruski (Martin Landau). One minute you’re making a home-made space invasion movie; next, you’re reviving your dead dog with household accessories. 

The Nightmare Before Christmas

 

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Director ~ Henry Selick

Writers ~ Tim Burton, Michael McDowell, Caroline Thompson

1993, USA

Stars ~ Danny Elfman, Chris Sarandon, Catherine O'Hara

In many ways, this summarises the Tim Burton agenda perfectly: a lofty misfit that loves the fun-and-frolics dress-up of horror, of Gothic macabre, still wants and is fascinated with the inverse shininess and performative brightness of Christmas, but his attempts to mimic the yuletide season just warps the simulations, because that is not what he is. Trapped in the euphoria of your own darker taste but still hankering for appeal of a care-free opposite. Just wanting something more than what you are: the identity crisis which is the perfect theme for a coming-of-age fairy tale and the Do Good Christmas agenda. Performatively "Bad kids" being envious of symbolic Goodness.

Directed by Henry Selick, scripted by Caroline Thompson and adapted by Michael McDowell from an idea and characters by Tim Burton, it’s a unique confection. Disney stuck Burton name on the title to make sure it brings in his fan’s money, but Selick is reported as saying that Burton only visited the production a handful of times over the four years it was being made. It was based upon Burton’s original three-page poem, the designs have the pointy-lanky design of Burton’s previous work and certainly the sensibility is identifiable to his: one only has to look to Burton’s short ode to Vincent Price, ‘Vincent’ to see this; and ‘Vincent’ too is the tale of a good boy indulging in the darker role playing. Price was intended to voice Jack Skellington, but illness had weakened his mellifluous voice and had to be replaced with Chris Sarandon (it’s also a tale of being overcome with depression, gestured at by the darker taste). But not to take away from Selick and Caroline Thompson’s screenplay or the adaptation by Michael Dowell, whose credits also speak of a fun-horror outlook, having also adapted ‘Beetlejuice’and Tales from both the Crypt and Darkside. And of course, the other crucial element that makes it feel Burtonesque is the showtune bravura of Danny Elfman. If the music isn’t quite to your taste, there are nevertheless smart lyrics to hook you. Elfman also sings as Jack Skellington. Burton and Elfman are one of cinema’s recognisable, indelible audio-visual collaborations.

 'Vincent'

It's a film that feels very modern, or post-modern, in its tossing and mashing up of various mythologies, Christianity gaudiness and Halloween paganism, genre cinema, scientific thought, and all in an extensively detailed world-building package. It doesn’t really lampoon the consumerism and corporate takeover of the seasons because it is not really interested in satirising that. In an age where many kid’s animations are overwhelmingly bombastic outpourings of zeitgeist and overlapping pop culture (e.g. the LEGO movies), this feels almost prescient in using multiple cultural sources.

The film is overflowing and delirious with imagination and gleeful subversion, and not just a little nastiness. There’s plenty of genuinely macabre detail and layers of jokes, such as rag-doll-Frankenstein-monster unstitching her own arm to get away from the hideous Dr. Finkelstein, her creator: it’s a gross gag that harks to the parenting angst of Mark Shelley’s novel. Zero the ghost-dog has a pumpkin nose (which also comes in handy when he stands in for Rudolph). The town mayor has two faces. And the sequence where unsuspecting kids open gifts made by a well-meaning Halloween Town is a delightful comic sequence.

Inevitably the stop-motion speaks of a remarkable, pain-staking achievement, which is indigenous to the process. 100 crew members averaged only 60 seconds of film per week in this $20 million production. Even if it is the work of others that embellished his original concept, ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ shows why Burton was a champion for outsiders and beloved for his Fun Goth Disney sensibility, with his designs still popular on the toy shelves today. My favourite is the burlap sack textures of Oogie Boogie.

Yet perhaps the real dark edge is that for all his anti-hero pretences, Jack Skellington is also really more a covetous egotist, motivated by envy, boredom and appropriation. All the woe-is-me and misinterpretation of Christmas is just play-acting to get in on someone else’s act, because after all, you can only be what you are, even with dress-up. But whatever genuine intentions he has gets him the girl, and he does seem to learn something about moderating your behaviour.

‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ provides a fun exploration of people with alternative tastes not understanding why their offbeat interpretations can’t be as much appreciated or beloved as the more mainstream upbeat fare. It is all so joyous that it really does say that opposite attract and co-exist. After all, surely all you happy people love a scare?

Grimmfest Online 2025

Well, I often bemoaned that many online festivals had stopped after Covid. Even the London Film Festival continued to offer a few titles online for a while. So I was glad to see that Grimmfest were still doing this. It was a bonus film holiday but at home. There is the panic of trying to fit as many as you can in the time you are given (especially as I had double-booked the first night), but it all turned out fine and to be most enjoyable.

 

THE TREE HOUSE - LA CASA EN EL ÁRBOL

Writer & Director ~ Luis Calderón

Cast ~ Sandra Escacena, Claudio Portalo, Kandido Uranga

2025, Spain

Histrionic and daft, it starts with the setting on “melodrama” and doesn’t let up. There are enough clues and ellipses to keep the intrigue, and for the final revelation to make a little sense of the inconsistencies or at least to wave them off. There’s enough deliberation in the confusions to make this entertaining, but not enough nailed-down camp-cleverness (e.g. Pedro Almodavar) to go beyond exploitation. You may be tired out by the erratic nature of the unreliable narrator and plot holes, although she warns you at the beginning, and the reveal may verge on bad taste, the kind that you'll dismiss either as silly, distasteful or as verification - and you’ll be grateful for big font credits.

WHERE DARKNESS DWELLS

Director ~ Michael May

Writers ~ Michael May, Alexandra Grunberg

Cast ~    Tara Perry, Katie Parker, Kenna Wright

2025, USA

Starting with unpleasantly self-centred media types and potentially slasher vibes, Trish Bostwick – coming from the feistily-breakin’-the-rules-for-the-story school of journalism – sets out on a missing persons case, hoping to make it a bit more than a listicle. Not to say too much because there are enough twists and genre play to keep this alert and intriguing throughout, even if some sequences last too long. It throws in a lot; messes around and then gets out before it gets too serious. It lingers as fun.

 

DON’T HANG UP

Writer & Director ~ Alex Herron

Cast ~ Claire McPartland, Siri Black Ndiaye, Sanho Kang, Brett Curtis

2025, USA

Despite characters and performances that are more convincing for not being overplayed to the point of superficial, and although it knows to dial up with each supernatural occurrence, this is ultimately an average supernatural excursion. Inevitably, there’s a lot of running up and down stairs with a guy in the corner of the screen watching, but there is also intelligent use of space. Glowing eyes in the shadows is its best creepiness. And this comes from the stable of ghosts that are malevolent until they are talked down and reasoned with, which I am inclined means things result in a damp squib.

 

SHADOWS OF WILLOW CABIN

Writer & Directors ~ Joe Fria

Cast ~ Bryan Bellomo, John Brodsky

2025, USA

And indie chamber piece with big feeling and supernatural trimmings. Bryan Bellomo and John Brodsky are excellent, flirty and convincing in an LGBTQ confessional that that besieges repressed homosexuality with a supernatural malevolence that can only partially be reasoned with. As the film is so very strong on two troubled people getting to know each other, the ghostly stuff is lesser meat. Firmly in the gay-is-suffering cabin, but there’s a wealth of empathy and experience here.

 

 

ADORABLE HUMANS ~ Yndige Mennesker

Writers ~ Hans Christian Andersen, Anders Jon, Kasper Juhl,

Michael Kunov, Michael Panduro

Cast ~ Karim Theilgaard, Niels Bender, Frederik Carlsen

2025, Denmark
 

“Adorable Humans. Preferably miserable.”  Four Danish directors update and re-imagine Hans Christian Anderson. An anthology in which unfortunate protagonists have grievous encounters with Faith, Grief, witchcraft, body horror, sex, and the intrusion of unfathomable malevolent forces. Both downbeat and hallucinogenic, bawdy and given to tonal shifts that you don’t quite notice as the Danish sensibility and black humour gives all the tales a cohesiveness. The abstract and unsolvable elements feel akin more to psychological illness than supernatural failure-of-reality, and often an amalgamation of both. Full of striking imagery and the inexplicable, it is an intriguing and fascinating horror that feels like a perversion of the usual fun portmanteau model. 

THE DRIFTLESS

Writer & Director ~ Tim Connery

Cast ~ Ira Amyх, Torrey Hanson, Justin Marxen

2025, USA

If the first tale of this anthology doesn’t lead to too much, the second is dourest and shows that the storytelling is going to take its time with a character to get to its point, which pays off for the third. The first story, although spiced up with a couple’s bickering love, it is also the more flippant and obvious. Like the final episode of ‘Adorable Humans’, the second story here is also about a music maker’s writer’s block and supernatural suffering, and both are weirdly, perversely positive. It hints that there’s more weight to this than just fun-and-frolics horror anthology with a nice location.  The final pool story is like a ‘Twilight Zone’ episode for a protagonist unable to get its message, and probably the one that will stay in the memory to be pondered over. It’s the highlight of a bright, fun, surprisingly substantial selection with a satisfying overarching tale with Antique Al.

 

DEATH CYCLE

Director ~ Gabriel Carrer

Writer ~ Dave McLeod

Cast ~ Matthew Ninaber, Justin Bott, Kristen Kaster

2025, USA

Although a promising veneer of a leatherclad killer biker, there’s probably ultimately a little too much concentration on plot and not enough giallo absurdity/excess. Some nice kills, though.

 

IT NEEDS EYES

Writers & Directors ~ Zack Ogle, Aaron Pagniano

Cast ~ Raquel Lebish, Isadora Leiva, Lydia Fiore

2025, USA

Powered by a scenic location and a fantastic performance by Raquel Lebish, once the provocation of the title seems to be about the insatiable hunger of our screens and the darker side of the virtual world, this comes on like it may be something like a Jane Schoenbrun affair (‘We’re All Going to the World’s Fair’, ‘I Saw the TV Glow’). It’s that too but has more traditional horror intent as well. Coming-of-age scenarios are ripe for the supernatural-horror, and Ogle and Pagniano move deftly between making their points about growing pains and falling down rabbit-hole obsessions before delivering an almost Lynchian conclusion: Is that what you wanted? Impressively and satisfyingly realised. 

 

FRANKIE, MANIAC WOMAN

Director ~ Pierre Tsigaridis

Writers ~ Dina Silva, Pierre Tsigaridis

Cast ~ Dina Silva

2025, USA

Finally delivering on the promise of ‘Two Witches’ and ‘Traumatika’, Pierre Tsigaridis’ serial killer is obviously a descendent of ‘Maniac’, grindhouse (I mean, look at that poster), Eighties satirical horrors and feminist rethinking before heading off into more sun-drenched, quasi-cultish areas. This is mostly due to the focus and outrage Dina Silva brings: hers is a punk, fearless, funny, musical, frightening performance. The songs and disgust at the music business and beauty standards are hers and yet in no way are we invited to think of her as anything other than deliriously, hilariously unhinged. “I’ve killed a fucking fan!” The gore is often too ripe to be funny, but there’s as much outrage as tongue in the cheek, and as full-on as it comes on, there’s a plan here. For example, one of the best gags, knowing what we know, is Frankie ending up with a troupe of gorgeous women. There’s disgusting, outrageous fun to be had even as something more heartfelt eats away at the edges.

 

BAD HAIRCUT

Writer & Director ~ Kyle Misak

Cast ~ Spencer Harrison Levin, Frankie Ray and Nora Freetly

2025, USA

Starting with the obnoxious tropes of Eighties High School comedies, where you know that the loveable loser will learn the error of his goofiness, get a good haircut and conform. John Hughes’ legacy has much to answer for, for example. But where Frankie Ray comes on strong, the flamboyance is never quite homophobic, the eccentricity is just as scary as it is whacky, and the unpredictable performance proves the film’s saving grace. It’s both in-your-face and carefully attuned. Levin is a good straightman, Freetly gives good side-eye, Martin Klebba as the inexplicable “Wimp” is the unsung treasure, and Beau Minniear and R.J. Beaubrun give good popular buddies (Beaubrun is often very funny). Despite its pretence to being as dodgy as those old Eighties flicks where unrealistic dramatics lead to our picked-on protagonist getting the girl, there’s a lot of careful calibration so that it doesn’t fall into the distasteful. But it’s Ray’s show.

Performances:

Bryan Bellomo & John Brodsky (The Shadow of Willow Cabin)

Dina Silva (Frankie, Maniac Woman)

Raquel Lebish (It Needs Eyes)

Frankie Ray (Bad Haircut)

 

Ick!!

Big Teeth hallucination, corpse mouth & eating the mirror – Adorable Humans

Runover Neck – Death Cycle

Breast hack – Frankie, Maniac Woman

 

I ended up finding ‘Frankie, Maniac Woman’ the surprise hit, ‘Bad Haircut’ more entertaining than I predicted (or wanted), ‘Death Cycle’ a disappointment; ‘It Needs Eyes’ had the most resonance, ‘Adorable Humans’ the more unsettling, ‘Driftless’ the most fruitfully entertaining; ‘Where Darkness Dwells’ unexpectedly winning, ‘Shadows of Willow Cabin’ the one I was happiest just to hang out with, and ‘The Tree House’ the most What?

And several of the ones I opted out of, considering this was at at-home-online festival, were ones centred on social media platforms that meant you would have to sit through a lot of people being insufferable, or minutes of texting with keyboard clicking, and I thought that if I wanted to hear that, I would just go on public transport. It proved a prejudice, but I did not feel the need to sit through all that preamble of media platform mimicry to wait for it to potentially get good when I had limited watching time and the server kept not loading and/or lagging with demand. Hey, these are titles I will probably give proper due in the future.

Predator: Badlands

Predator: Badlands

Director ~ Dan Trachtenberg

Writers ~ Patrick Aison, Dan Trachtenberg, Jim Thomas

2025,  United States-Australia-New Zealand-Canada-Germany

Stars ~ Elle Fanning, Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, Ravi Narayan

Surely, we all came away from ‘Prey’ (2022) set in the 18th-century Great Plains saying, “If only the franchise was the Predator facing off against opponents across different eras!” – but it seems that that was exactly Dan Trachtenberg’s vision all along. Updated for modern concerns with a Ladies-Are-Badass-Too focus – the perpetual insistence on this instead of letting it be organic being the film’s weakness, depriving its protagonist of further depth – ‘Prey’s stripped-down gender-flip-the-original proved fun and satisfying. It felt taken back from the disappointments the franchise had taken with the action-toys-mashed-together trajectory merging with the Xenomorphs. And it shouldn’t be undervalued that Trachtenberg centred it on a Native American woman in the 1700s.

‘Predator: Killer of Killers’ (2025) proved an even greater a step forward: if nothing else, Trachtenberg is certainly trying to push what is a limited narrative starting point as much as he can. Having reinvigorated the premise with ‘Prey’, he offered an animated anthology utilising the exoticism of different eras. And again, it made sure the Women Warriors are represented. There was a lot of impressive animation – the World War 2 airplane-versus-spaceship battle being a highlight – although the introduction of time travel is maybe an unnecessary addition. It continued from Nimród Antal’s sufficient ‘Predators’ (2010) in taking things off world and broadening the range.

Having exhausted the Predator Throughout History angle with ‘Killer of Killers’, Trachtenberg obviously had the plan to explore the alien hunter culture. After all, the problem with its predecessor was that it was an anthology of the killer of killers getting beaten every time.

So, we open ‘Badlands’ with Predators talking to one another, but as it is all rooted in masculine Brother and Daddy Issues (shades especially of the first ‘Killer of Killers’ segment), there is nothing challenging, nothing unfamiliar to us. Rather, Dek’s mission to prove himself becomes increasingly convincing so that when he lands on a perilous planet to go hunting, it promised perhaps a silent odyssey of his killing and surviving his way across the planet. It would actually be a shame if humans turned up, I was thinking, so that I was disappointed when indeed a human face appeared. Even more disappointed that it was Elle Fanning as a perpetually irritating synthetic motormouth character, undermining any gravatas already built-up. It does the Odd Couple Funnies thing, and by the time a cutesy-but-lethal alien joined the odyssey, it was essentially ‘Shrek’ for ‘Predator’ fans.

Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi brings the necessary physicality to Dek, and the alien face effects are great and unsettling, however much they try to make him a relatable anti-hero – but it is Elle Fanning that gets top billing. Predators with daddy issues – didn’t see that coming.  And a rote Find Your Own Family message was not an angle expected of Trachtenberg to take the franchise either, for both good and bad. One has to commend Trachtenberg trying to stretch the franchise parameters, although one might argue that putting that particular narrative cupcake in this action playpen is ill-fitting: the sister stuff is distracting, often irritating, and drags the enterprise away from its focus. But then again, this film is not a bloodbath expected of the franchise as everyone is a synthetic, proposing even crossover appeal (in the screening I attended, there were preteens). Yet the limitations of the franchise do feel usurped, first by blowing them all on an animated go-for-broke and then expanding and changing the emphasis. That there’s apparently a long-game of interest being carried out is laudable and still fascinating for fans (the females next, it seems).