Review #212: Frankenweenie (2012)

This review was originally written in 2022.

Gabe's 100 Bucket List Horror Films Review #67: Frankenweenie (2012)

This movie came out in late 2012, roughly the same time as ParaNorman (another animated horror movie about something supernatural happening to a child in a small town). I went to see ParaNorman due to, probably among other things, the fact that a story about the death of a pet doesn't strike me as particularly enjoyable. As such, I watched Frankenweenie for the first time today, and although there's more to the movie than that, I'd be lying if I said it didn't color my entire viewing experience.

Frankenweenie is a modern re-imagining of the Frankenstein story, following a child Victor Frankenstein. When his pet dog Sparky is hit by a car, he resorts to using science to bring back his closest friend, but in a twist from the original story, this is only the beginning of the shenanigans to come when his classmates discover his project and misguidedly use it to further their own goals.

So, the story of this movie isn't... bad, but again, I have to express that I wasn't too excited about watching a movie about someone losing a beloved pet and then spending the whole movie assuming it's going to end with that pet dying a second time. (I'm going to go ahead and spoil the ending for anyone who might worry about the same thing: it ends with him seemingly dying again, but then he gets better. Not like, better-better, but he resumes the re-animated state he was in for most of the film.) I was also not too happy about how the big setpiece scene, where all of the evil schoolmates use Victor's method to bring back all of their dead pets and things go awry, ends with all of those pets being killed again too. Surely I'm not alone in strongly disliking movies where pets die, right?

Pet death aside, as I said, the movie wasn't particularly bad, but it wasn't particularly good either. The visual style Tim Burton chose to use seems to have just been "Off-putting", which works for certain movies he's made (like Nightmare Before Christmas, though he technically didn't make that I guess) but doesn't really work when the characters are ostensibly supposed to be human. It's been a while since I saw Corpse Bride but the characters in this were far more off-putting than I remember Corpse Bride being, and I don't remember liking Corpse Bride.

Simply put, I didn't really find much to enjoy in this film. Maybe you will, but I really didn't. The only good thing I can say I liked was the science teacher had a really good "Explain Like I'm Five" explanation for how lightning works.

Overall Rating: 4/10 Burning Windmills

Future Movie Connection: In one scene, Victor's parents are watching the 1958 film "Horror of Dracula", which is on this Bucket List and I'll be watching it later this year!