Victor Frankenstein is a young boy who is fascinated with science. Victor doesn't have many friends, but that doesn't bother him because he has his loyal dog Sparky. After Sparky is killed by a car, Victor gets the idea to bring his dog back to life using electricity. Victor's plan works and Sparkly lives once more. When Victor's classmates learn what he has done they decide to bring their own dead pets back to life. Unfortunately, the experiment doesn't go quite as well for them and even puts the whole town in danger.

This movie is a remake of a short film Tim Burton made in 1984. A short film that ended up getting Burton fired from Disney, so it is pretty ironic that Disney would let Burton remake his film several years later. Well, back in the day Burton was just a lowly animator and now that he's a famous director he can do pretty much whatever he wants. I guess we can thank Disney for firing Burton in the first place as otherwise he wouldn't have had his first big break with Pee-wee's Big Adventure.

Burton obviously has a passion for old horror movies as this picture is full of references and in-jokes. There are probably too many to list here, but I'll mention some of my favourites. One of Victor's classmates is called Elsa, after the actress Elsa Lanchester who played the original Bride of Dracula. Elsa's dog Persephone even gets a stripe in her fur like the Bride. Science teacher Mr. Rzykruski looks like he was based on old horror ham Vincent Price. Nassor, another one of Victor's classmates, looks like he is based on Boris Karloff. More specifically, Karloff in 1932's The Mummy. Nassor is one of the other students who tries to bring a dearly departed pet back from the dead. His chosen pet is a hamster called Colossus who makes such an adorable little mummy.

This being a Tim Burton production, you would expect there to be some returning actors from his previous works. Surprisingly, no Johnny Depp or Helena Bonham Carter. However, there was Martin Short (Mars Attacks!), Catherine O'Hara (Beetlejuice), Winona Ryder (Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands) and Martin Landau (Ed Wood).

It won't surprise you to hear that this movie is really quite creepy. It's a Tim Burton movie about a boy bringing his dog back to life, of course it's going to be creepy. You can understand why Disney freaked out when Burton first made his short film. Any way, I digress. The movie is rather creepy, but rather sweet with it. That being said, Weird Girl's face will haunt my dreams for the rest of my days.

My rating: 4 stars.