Though the El Capitan Theater was flooded with laughter not
screams Friday night, the three Tim Burton films that were shown
and will continue to be through Halloween were perfectly suited for
the season.
Cult favorite “Frankenweenie” opened the lineup, and
the twisted comedy quickly established the night’s tone. A
30-minute featurette originally intended to accompany
Disney’s re-release of “Pinocchio” in theaters,
the piece’s mock-horror feel leaves little doubt to who had
the biggest hand in its production. The story follows a little boy
named Victor Frankenstein whose beloved dog is killed by a car. The
story proceeds to chronicle his attempts to bring the dog back to
life and the town’s mob-like reaction when he succeeds.
The film is distinctly Tim Burton ““ he references early
horror films while simultaneously adding his own cartoon-like
twist. According to Shelly Duvall (who plays the mother in
“Frankenweenie” and participated in the night’s
panel discussion), the set borrowed a few props from the original
“Frankenstein.” But while it may subtly hint toward
horror films of the ’30s, overall the film doesn’t try
to be anything other than a genuinely heartfelt and modest attempt
by a young, yet visionary, filmmaker.
“Vincent,” Burton’s 1982 directorial debut,
uses stop-motion animation a la “The Nightmare Before
Christmas” and to a similarly macabre effect. Led by a poem
read in the suave baritone drawl of late actor Vincent Price,
“Vincent” carries the viewer through varying notions of
reality in the life of seven-year-old Vincent Malloy. The boy
imagines inhabiting a horror film in an attempt to escape the
doldrums of everyday life. The story repeatedly alternates between
his reality and his imagination, but to the viewer all of it is
spectacularly surreal.
The two early shorts only hinted at Burton’s uncanny
ability to create brand new worlds within 35 mm film. “The
Nightmare Before Christmas,” a fully-realized visionary
piece, was given new life on the big screen with each visually
intricate frame.
Danny Elfman’s score, blaring through the El
Capitan’s speakers in pristine quality, magnified the movie
as much as the stop-motion animation. His eerie, otherworldly yet
charmingly quirky pieces dictated the tone of the movie as well as
its story ““ as director Henry Selick commented before the
start of the film. In essence, Elfman practically wrote half the
script.
By also providing the authoritative voice of Jack Skellington,
Elfman proves as integral as Burton in the movie’s creation.
This movie represents one of Elfman’s major creative
pinnacles, with an innovativeness recently lacking in scores for
films such as “Planet of the Apes” and “Red
Dragon.”
Despite the long and arduous process of its creation, nine years
later “Nightmare” is an inspirational tour-de-force
that brought together the best of Elfman and Burton. And judging
from the scattering of dressed up freaks at the El Capitan, it may
just become a mainstay of Halloween.