Saturday, October 06, 2012

Horror Thoughts ‘12—Vincent (1982) ****


G, 6 min.
Director/Writer: Tim Burton
Narrator: Vincent Price

With the release of his new feature length film “Frankenweenie”, director Tim Burton returns to his roots as a stop motion animator. It’s always been apparent in all of his films that b-grade horror flicks, especially the Edgar Allen Poe adaptations starring Vincent Price, heavily influenced Burton. In his 1982 short film “Vincent” he pays tribute to Poe and Price with his images and his poetry.


Price narrates Burton’s poetry here as it plays in the very same tradition of some of Poe’s words. The images are in black and white and stop motion animation, both products of a by gone era cinematically. Burton’s character designs and imagination is on full display here and pre-echoes many of the images that he will reproduce in such films as “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure”, “Beetlejuice”, “Edward Scissorhands”, “The Nightmare Before Christmas”, and the new “Frankenweenie”.

In only six minutes, Burton gets across his love for b-grade horror films, his carnival like view on the world, his childlike imagination, and his pure cinematic skill. Watching this short, it’s not surprising that Burton has become such a noted filmmaker. He has a distinct style to all his movies, and it can be witnessed in the work he produced long before he was making features. “Victor” is a rare look at an artist who started out fully formed.

Watch the entire short below.



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