Corpse Bride (2005)

Helena Bonham Carter voices the title character in
Tim Burton's 2005 stop-motion animated film.

Just in time for Halloween, Tim Burton's “Corpse Bride” arrives on the Netflix streaming platform during the month of October. It's also the ten year anniversary of the stylish and often amusing stop-motion animated film from 2005.

Set in Europe during Victorian times, the simple story of an arranged marriage between two young people hits a snag when the timid hero, Victor (voice of Johnny Depp), bolts from a rehearsal ceremony and into the forest in a fit of nervousness. Trying to practice delivering his vows, he slips the bride’s ring onto a craggy tree branch that turns out to be the skeletal remains of Emily (Helena Bonham Carter), a former bride-to-be herself until her suitor turned out to be an evil, pilfering murderer.

This sets the stage for Burton's bizarre love triangle that alternates between two highly distinct worlds—one above, the other beyond the grave—as the perpetually frazzled Victor is eventually confronted with the choice between returning to his flesh-colored fiancée (Emily Watson) in the land of the living, or staying with his accidentally betrothed Emily, now tinted blue and decaying but still ebullient and loving, in the land of the dead.

As far as where it fits within Burton’s stop-motion oeuvre, “Corpse Bride” isn’t as inspired or imaginative as “The Nightmare Before Christmas” and lacks both the thematic complexity and emotional depth of the masterful “Frankenweenie,” but it’s still an entertaining, comically morbid visual treat.

From Beyond: Victor (Johnny Depp) and Bonejangles
(Danny Elfman) get jazzy in "Corpse Bride."

Not surprisingly, Burton’s vision of the afterlife turns out to be more fun. While scenes of the living take place in stuffy mansions and unfold in dull, sepia tones, the land of the dead is a considerably more colorful and lively place. Much of the action takes place at a swinging nightclub called “The Ball and Socket,” where the music is loud and drinks flow—quite literally—right through you.

It’s here where the best moment of “Corpse Bride” arrives early on, when a singing, dancing, one-eyed skeleton in a derby hat named Bonejangles (voiced by Danny Elfman, Burton’s regular sound man) does his best Sammy Davis Jr., fronting a hip jazz band of assorted undead for an upbeat romp called “The Remains of the Day.”

The song is so good in fact that subsequent numbers turn up dead on arrival. Which, given the subject matter, is perhaps appropriate.