There is a fan theory that this movie is set in the same universe as Corpse Bride and that our Hero is a descendant of Victor and Victoria from that movie. (And that the dog is descended from his dog, which feels less necessary.) Certainly it wouldn’t be entirely surprising, given that the characters in this movie are clearly living in a horror-savvy universe. It’s astounding how quickly the townspeople acquire torches, for example, and how much access literal schoolchildren—and by the evidence, elementary-aged children—have to various bits of electrical equipment.

Victor Frankenstein (Charlie Tahan) lives a quiet life in the suburbs. He doesn’t have friends; he has his dog, Sparky (Frank Welker), with whom he makes movies. Mr. Rzykruski (Martin Landau), the new teacher, announces a science fair. Mr. Frankenstein (Martin Short) says he’ll sign Victor’s permission slip if Victor will go play baseball. Unfortunately, at the baseball game, Sparky is hit by a car and killed. Victor has a new idea for the science fair, and things go seriously sideways.

Mrs. Frankenstein (Catherine O’Hara) seems to have a better feel for her son than her husband does. She’s the one who notes that he doesn’t have any friends. It seems clear that Elsa Van Helsing (Winona Ryder) would be his friend, but the culture with the boys in that town is unsettling. There’s Edgar “E” Gore (Atticus Shaffer), your standard hunchback Peter Lorre type, whose idea for a science fair project is a death ray. (It says on the sheet “no death rays.”) Nassor (Short again) looks like the Karloff Frankenstein’s Monster. Toshiaki (James Hiroyuki Liao) and Bob (Robert Capron) are not any characters I specifically recognize but definitely along those lines.

Weird Girl (O’Hara again) is visually a Village of the Damned type, yet another one of the references this movie is filled with. (Yes, I know she’s from a book of drawings Tim Burton did ages ago, but come on.) There’s even a clip from Christopher Lee’s Dracula, in part one assumes because of Burton’s deep affection for Christopher Lee. Yes, various characters do resemble Corpse Bride characters, too, but if you know even just the basics of horror movies, there’s a lot of references you’ll get. I’m particularly fond of Shelley; the name is an obvious play, but also Shelley becomes really neat.

I’m not sure I’d seen this movie since I saw it in the theatre, and that was a mistake on my part. This movie is charming. Burton apparently said that, were he not permitted to make it in B&W, he wouldn’t have made it, and good on him. This movie needs B&W. It needs to reach its horror roots. The flaming windmill, for example, absolutely has to call to mind James Whale, and it wouldn’t in colour. I’m a fan of the use of colour in Corpse Bride, but that had things said through its choices that aren’t relevant here.

For the curious, who have only watched one or the other, the original half-hour short, starring Shelley Duvall, Daniel Stern, and Barrett Oliver, is something of a framework that the story here hangs off. Various of the story beats follow the short exactly. The story as a whole is quite different, having added the whole “science fair” aspect of the plot and pretty much every character outside the family. The whole thing is still more of Burton’s fixation—not unlike King’s and Lynch’s—with suburbia and what might be hidden there.

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