Worlds In Collision

Rating: 6/10 (19 February 2006)

Another collision of the Burton visual world vs. the Elfman musical world.
Here, by giving directorial control away, Burton's vision suffers an irretrievable loss of focus.
Halloween, of course, has no musical narrative to accompany it...so all we as a society have are movie ideas (Rocky Horror, all the monster features) to hold it together. Before movies, all we had were literary ones (Frankenstein, Bram Stoker). This is Burton's home world, lacking real people, but encompassing 'puppets controlled by minds'-- a world of art.
Fundamentally, Christmas is a musical world -- Elfman's milieu -- just think of any Christmas song and all the imagery you need is there. The literary/movie narratives just accrete and grow bigger each year, a 'snowball'. In modern times, the exterior has been all crass commercialism -- the visuals rooted in musical notions ('jingles').
The collision is oil vs. water -- you can shake it, but eventually the mixture separates. Burton, the Pumpkin King, has to resign to his fate. This is the necessary essay before the successful marriage achieved in "Corpse Bride".