Frankenweenie - 2012

I liked it enough, because it was scarysweet, because the core of the film is the love of a solitary boy for his dog. Also because it shows how ordinary, close-minded people react to what they don’t understand in an aggressive way turning themselves into the real bad guys.

I never find animation scary, so I’ll say that it is ‘scary’ in an entertaining way, not in a scary way. I know what I mean now, I wonder if I’ll still know what I meant in years to come..

Anyway, the details:

Victor’s only real friend is his dog Sparky who stars in all his movies and plays catch with him. He sometimes talk with his neighbour Elsa who also loves her dog Persephone. His father wants him to interact more and play baseball with other children, so he does, but when he hits the ball Sparky breaks free and runs after it. Sparky gets hit by a car and dies. Victor is devastated: “I don’t want him in my heart, I want him here with me”, and truer words were never spoken.

When he learns from the school’s new science teacher that a body responds to electricity even after death, he chooses to try his own science-project :-p he digs out Sparky’s body and revives him in his attic. At first it seems to him that it didn’t work, but then “you’re alive! you’re alive!”, but Victor must keep it a secret so Sparky can’t go out and can’t leave the attic. Sparky does though, he seems to have a habit of breaking free, and Edgar sees him and confronts him “your dog is alive, you did it!” and “show me how or I’ll tell everyone”. Edgar buys a dead fish and wants Victor to show him how he did it. The goldfish swims again now but is also invisible. Edgar promises that he won’t tell anyone but then he goes straight to Toshiaki and Bob. They both want to win the science fair prize, and when Bob falls off the roof troubles start. The mayor says that the new teacher “endangers” the children and is a menace. When given the chance to defend himself, the teacher says “the confusion here is that you are all very ignorant, I mean ‘stupid’, ‘primitive’, ‘unenlightened’, you do not understand science so you are afraid of it”. He gets fired of course, and the gym teacher takes his place :-/

Edgar tells the other kids about Victor bringing back Sparky. Victor’s parents find out too and Sparky runs outside, towards the town’s country-fair. While everyone’s out, Edgar takes the other kids to Victor’s attic to show them how he did it. 

Sparky goes to sleep over his grave.

Toshiaki digs up his dead turtle Shelley, Nassor his dead hamster Colossus. Edgar finds a dead rat and Bob uses a whole packet of sea-monsters, while the girl uses a dead bat.. they all want to try Victor’s experiment. 

When lightnings hit, the girl’s living-car Mr Whiskers had the dead bat in his mouth so he becomes a half-cat half-bat flying monster, Shelley becomes a gigantic turtle, and there’s a whole army of sea monsters. Bob asks for Victor’s help, and Toshiaki too: “I asked him first” - “My problem bigger” and they all see Shelley walking by. 

Victor stops the sea monsters with popcorn and Shelley and the rat with electricity. Mr Whiskers abducts Persephone and Elsa runs after her dog. Victor runs to help, and Sparky calls for help but as they see him, the mayor and everyone else is like “monster!” and they start saying “he killed Elsa!” and “kill it!” . Victor saves Elsa, and Sparky runs in to help him. The windmill is on fire because of the mayor’s torch but Sparky brings Victor out, but then Mr Whiskers brings Sparky back inside. 

Mr Whiskers dies then the firemen bring out Sparky’s body. They are all touched at how the undead-dog saved his life, and they attach the body to all the cars’ batteries, and Sparky is ‘recharged’.