Oh, those interfering Avon Ladies...

Rating: 10/10 (11 October 2014)

What's truly amazing about this movie is not only the wonderful story, but the performances of the actors/actresses. Vincent Price plays one of his final roles as the caring inventor, Winona Ryder plays suburb teenager Kim, Anthony Micheal Hall plays ignorant jock boyfriend Jim, and Johnny Depp does an excellent job playing the Gothic and creative character of Edward Scissorhands.
When an Avon lady, Peg, goes up to a mansion that everybody usually steers clear of, she is shocked yet curious to find a teenage-looking man with scissors for hands living alone in the mansion. When asked about his parents, he replies, "he didn't wake up". Realizing his parents must be dead, she doesn't want to leave him there and takes him home. The family is very accepting, but the gossiping Stepford Wife-like ladies of the neighborhood are not. One in particular, a religious fanatic shut-in named Esmerelda, suspects he may be "the work of Satan". As time goes by the neighbors all learn to accept him; he even gives them new creative haircuts and topiary hedge animals. Soon though, when a skank named Joyce tries to seduce him and he refuses since he has no idea what's going on, she claims he raped him to hide the real truth. This sends things in a steady but downward spiral and soon the only one who really loves him is Kim, Peg's teenage daughter, who at first hates him but realizes how much he cares for her when on Christmas she sees a dazzling ice sculpture he has made of her.
Kim's boyfriend Jim becomes jealous and the neighbors get curious, soon the cops are involved, and Edwards only choice is to hide in the mansion. What none of them realize is that Edward was never a person in the same sense a them; he is sentient but he was an invention created by the inventor who owned the house. Before the inventor could give Edward human hands (plastic ones), he dropped dead from a heart attack, Leaving Edward unfinished with very little sense of what the modern world was like. When Kim finds him in the mansion they reunite, but Jim shows up and tries to kill Edward, and Edward's last resort is killing Jim by stabbing him and shoving him out the window. Kim lies to the horrified neighbors, holding up a fake hand and saying Edward has died. Joyce and Esmerelda regretfully look on and realize what they've done, and then everybody leaves forever. Edward is still alive, an elderly Kim reveals to her granddaughter years later, still in the mansion making ice sculptures of Kim decades later.
This movie is incredible, somewhat morbid but still an amazing experience to watch. The soundtrack was beautiful, the characters creative, the scenery surreal and original and the plot is the most original I've heard of in a long time! Edward Scissorhands vaguely reminded me of The Lovely Bones (2009), Gremlins (1985) and American Gothic (1988). It's comedic, dramatic, sad and altogether stunning, one of Tim Burton's best films.