Movie Review: In a Spectral Trance

To get in the Fall/October/Halloween mood, I watched Tim Burton's Corpse Bride last night.  It is along the style of The Nightmare Before Christmas, taking a seemingly morbid idea and turning it quite human.  He used the same stop-motion technology in making this film, and it adds so much texture and charm that it makes up for the slow storyline.  Boasting the voice talents of Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, and Christopher Lee (who steals the show as an angry old priest), the characters make you a little more invested as well.

Taking place in the dreary and grey victorian era, Johnny Depp is Victor, a shy, introverted artistic type who is set to marry Victoria, who is also shy and dainty.  They have never met.  They fall in love upon meeting for the wedding rehearsal, but Victor can't quite get his vows straight.  He runs to the woods to practice, placing the ring on a twisted branch, which happens to be the decrepit finger of the corpse bride, voiced by Bonham Carter.  She accepts, bringing Victor downstairs to the world of the dead, which is colorful and lively.  They have a skeleton band, a motherly spider, and a sense of humor that the living people lack.  Quite intriguing to our young Victor.

Eventually, due to living vs. dead complications, the dead community comes upstairs so Victor and the corpse bride can actually get married in the church.  The ending makes this story much more mature than its intended audience of children, which makes this movie worth watching.  The visuals alone would make it watch-worthy, but Burton has a way with making the outsiders and weirdos lovable.

(photos collected from frank.tv, moving-picture, erinaphernelia.buzznet, and drafthouse)