bloody-disgusting.com

Interview

[Interview] Tim Burton On Black And White, Science And The Array Of Monsters In ‘Frankenweenie’

Movies
Posted by EvanDickson on October 04, 2012 @ 6:49pm
Category: Movies / Interviews

Frankenweenie is easily the best Tim Burton movie in a decade. I was almost braced to dislike it, so it was a wonderful surprise to find myself concurring with Brad’s glowing review. In the film, a young Victor conducts a science experiment to bring his beloved dog Sparky back to life, only to face unintended, sometimes monstrous, consequences.

Accompanied by a few other journalists, I sat down with Burton last week to talk about the differences between the feature-length Frankenweenie and his 1984 short of the same name. We also discussed the film’s embrace of science and horror history.

The voice cast includes four actors who worked with Burton on previous films: Winona Ryder (Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands), Catherine O’Hara (Beetlejuice, The Nightmare Before Christmas), Martin Short (Mars Attacks!) and Martin Landau (Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow), while Charlie Tahan and Atticus Shaffer were later added. Over 200 puppets and sets were created for the film, and that several of the character names—Victor, Elsa Van Helsing, Edgar “E” Gore and Mr. Burgermeister — were inspired by classic horror films.

Frankenweenie hits theaters tomorrow, October 5th. Head inside for the interview! READ MORE

House of Frankenstein

Posted by Bloody Disgusting Staff on December 01, 1944 @ 12:00am
Category:

In many ways the most endearing of Universal’s B-grade “monster rallies” of the 1940s, House of Frankenstein manages within its 70-minute time span to make room for Frankenstein’s monster (Glenn Strange), Dracula (John Carradine) the Wolf Man (Lon Chaney Jr.), and a couple of new recruits, mad scientist Boris Karloff and demented hunchback J. Carroll Naish. Escaping from prison, Karloff vows to continue his diabolical efforts to emulate Dr. Frankenstein’s “eternal life” experiments; he also swears vengeance on the three men (Sig Ruman, Frank Reicher and Michael Mark) who were responsible for sending him to prison. With the help of fellow escapee Naish, Karloff murders a travelling-carnival impresario (George Zucco) and assumes his identity. He travels first to the village where Ruman is burgomaster. Since his carnival is a “chamber of horrors”, Karloff utilizes one of those horrors–Count Dracula–to settle his account with Ruman. Dracula does so, but dies when the first rays of sunlight stream across his body. En route to the next village, Naish gives shelter to runaway gypsy girl Elena Verdugo, who joins the caravan (though she remains incredibly naive concerning Karloff’s intentions!) Coming to the village when the Frankenstein monster and the Wolfman were presumably drowned at the end of Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman (1944), Karloff revives the latter, who when he’s not baying at the moon is the comparatively good-looking Lawrence Talbot. Karloff secures Talbot’s cooperation by promising to perform some brain surgery that will relieve him of his lycanthropy. Later on, Karloff kidnaps and kills his other enemies Mark and Reicher, intending to use their brains to cure Talbot and to reactivate the Frankenstein monster. Jealous of Verdugo’s attentions towards Talbot, Naish rebels against Karloff, and is killed for his troubles. Talbot turns into the Wolfman, whereupon Verdugo kills him before expiring herself. And Karloff, rendered immobile by the requisite attack of angry villagers, is dragged by the lumbering Monster into a pit of quicksand. Thus House of Frankenstein has something in common with Hamlet: No one is left alive at fade-out time. It’s to scenarist Robert Siodmak’s credit that he was able to fashion a coherent screenplay out of the crazy-quilt of copyrighted horror characters handed to him by Universal Pictures.