This week, we’ve got five good ones for you! We’ll start out with the new “Heart Eyes” from 2025, then we’ll look at 2012’s “Byzantium,” and then 2024’s “Inhuman Kiss.” We’ll also take a look at “The Corpse Bride” from 2005 and “The Dead Thing,” also from 2024.
And, of course, we have more excellent short films for you!
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Mainstream Films:
2025 Heart Eyes
Directed by Josh Ruben
Written by Phillip Murphy, Christopher Landon, Michael Kennedy
Stars Mason Gooding, Olivia Holt, Gigi Zumbado
Run Time: 1 Hour, 37 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This was way less serious than either of us expected. It’s got a serious body count and gore, but leans heavy into humor and romance too. Very much a mash up between a slasher horror and a rom-com. We found it entertaining.
Spoilery Synopsis
Patrick and Adeline are going to have the best Valentine’s day ever. He botches the proposal when she bites into the ring by accident. As they kiss, his phone interrupts. It’s Nico, the photographer, who’s messed up the “candid” photos. Someone kills Nico before he can try again. Then Patrick gets an arrow shot through his forehead. Adeline runs through the vineyard, and it’s nowhere near as romantic as it was a minute ago. As the killer closes in on her, a security guard tries to stop things, but he dies quickly. Adeline, on the other hand, learns what it’s like to ride through a giant wine press. We see the killer in his mask, which has hearts for eyes. Credits roll.
The news calls him “HEK” the “Heart Eyes Killer.” He’s struck several times on the past few Valentine’s Days.
We cut to Ally and Monica talking about the holiday. Ally is impressed to find she has exactly the same coffee order as Jay Simmonds, who is clearly on the path to be her new boyfriend until she accidentally gives him a bloody nose and runs away.
Crystal Cane talks to the board; she didn’t realize there was a Valentine’s Day killer out there, so Ally’s ad campaign is just terribly timed. She’s made an ad of various lovers dying violently, which is not the look Crystal was going for. She calls in Ally’s replacement, which turns out to be Jay Simmonds.
Detectives find a wedding band at the scene of the pre-credit murders, and it says “J.S.” They know it was HEK, and there are going to be more deaths.
Jay and Ally talk. Monica and Ally talk. Ally goes on a date with Jay, and the bouncer at the expensive French restaurant runs a metal detector over her. Ally goes on and on about how she’s the least romantic person ever. She really hates Jay, but kisses him when she spots Collin, her ex, who is out with a date of his own. We see through the killer’s mask as he watches all four people.
Ally gets locked out of her building, so Jay smashes a window and cuts his hand. Suddenly the duo is attacked by HEK, who’s been hiding in her closet. The killer then chases them into a closed botanical garden, and they all play hide and seek. As soon as the police show up, the killer disappears.
Jay is arrested as the HEK murderer. He’s not happy because Ally ditched him in the chase. They found the mask and the murder weapon. The ring they found earlier has his initials on it as well. Meanwhile, Ally tries to have Jay released since it couldn’t have been him. The detective points out that Jay was in the same towns as all the other HEK murders.
Suddenly, the lights go out at the police station and the real killer strikes again. We see that his heart eyes light up, and he’s got night vision. Soon, they’re all outta cops. Ally finds a gun and shoots the killer about a hundred times, missing HEK with every single shot. Still, Ally and Jay get out of the police station and make their way to a busy drive-in theater.
No one gives the masked killer a second look as he walks through the place stabbing people right and left. As they hide, Jay and Ally make up and bond a bit.
When the killer resurfaces, Ally wants to work with Jay as a team to defeat HEK. They knock him over the head and impale him with a machete. He’s gotta be dead now. Then Ally pukes all over the killer’s body. They pull the killer’s mask off and see that it’s– no one that they recognize.
After the police clean up everything, Jay gets a ride home with the surviving detective, and Ally’s left all alone. Monica calls and gives Ally a pep talk. Ally then rushes to the airport to catch Jay before he boards his flight out of town.
Out of nowhere, Ally gets a call from HEK, and he’s got Jay as a hostage. She goes to the old building and finds both Jay and the killer there. The killer removes his mask, and it’s David, the IT guy from the police station. He’s working with, and married to, Detective Jeanine Shaw (with initials J.S.). Eli, the killer who died, was just an obsessed fanboy; these two have been alternating kills all along.
The murderous duo want Ally to shoot Jay, and then they’ll let her go. She shoots right through Jay, wounding Shaw. David shoots as badly as Ally does, not hitting anything. Everyone fights, and Ally finally puts her metal straw to productive use as Jay finishes off David.
One year later, Crystal Cane makes a toast to Jay and Ally, who have saved her business. Ally is going back to medical school, and she’s still with Jay. Afterward, they go on another date at the same drive-in, which is sorta symbolic for them. He pulls out a ring– no, it’s just a key to his apartment. Instead, she proposes to him.
Midway through the closing credits, Ally gets a call from you-know-who. No, it’s just Monica playing a joke on them.
Brian’s Commentary
The trailer made this look like a bog-standard slasher film, but it actually leans way over into parody and comedy. The characters, situations, and deaths are mostly all very over the top, and have all the usual tropes from both slasher movies and rom-coms.
It doesn’t even have a stinger fake ending where the killer reappears before the credits. Well, it does, but not in the usual way. It’s not what we expected, and that’s the best thing I can say about this movie. I was entertained throughout.
Kevin’s Commentary
I thought this was a lot of fun. It didn’t show me a lot that I hadn’t seen before, but it’s well made and well put together. The entertainment value was high, and I enjoyed it a lot.
2012 Byzantium
Directed by Neil Jordan
Written by Moira Buffini
Stars Saoirse Ronan, Gemma Arterton, Sam Riley
Run Time: 1 Hour, 58 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This was cool how it starts out with a couple women and gradually fills in who they are and what their history is. There’s horror and romance and very good story telling. It’s a little on the long and slow side, but that’s a feature not a bug in this one, as the movie unfolds. It’s a very good one.
Spoilery Synopsis
Eleanor writes a story and then throws it out her window. Robert, an old man, reads her note and says it’s a good story. Her story is about Clara, who is full of secrets.
We cut to Clara, dancing in a nightclub. She steals from a man and then bites him on the nose when he puts up a fight. The club owner fires her, so she steals from him as well. When Werner comes looking for Clara, she leads him on a chase all over town.
Old man Richard takes Eleanor home and tells her stories from his scrapbook. “There comes a time in life when secrets should be told. You’ve got secrets, haven’t you?” He talks about old stories of revenants. She cuts his wrist and drinks his blood until he dies peacefully.
Werner and Clara talk. He repeatedly insults her. She very quickly beheads him in the hotel room. Eleanor comes home; she’s Clara’s roommate, and she’s not happy at the mess she finds. Now they have to move again. They set fire to the place and hitch-hike out of town.
The two women split up for the evening, and we see they have very different approaches to picking up men. Clara does the classic whore-thing, while Eleanor plays classical music for old people and a waiter named Frank. Eleanor doesn’t hurt her mark, but Clara invites her along to go home with Noel, whom she’s found. They go to his place, a big hotel called the “Byzantium.”
The Byzantium has a long history, but Noel owns the place. He invites Eleanor to stay there while he and Clara, aka Camilla, do their thing. Instead, Noel is a nice guy and he takes them in and helps them. Clara pitches the idea that she could start a whorehouse in the Byzantium.
We get a flashback to Eleanor’s “origin story,” where she runs into a woman in a batcave and gets bitten. She then goes home with Ruthven, an old vampire who says he knew Eleanor’s mother.
Eleanor finds it necessary to tell her story. She can’t tell Noel, so she goes back to Frank and tells him about her mother’s encounter with Ruthven. Her mother was forced into prostitution and had baby Eleanor, whom she put in an orphanage. She grew up to become a nun.
The men who investigated Werner’s death have now found old man Richard’s corpse, and they seem to know what they’re seeing. We cut to Clara, drinking some guy on the beach.
Eleanor goes to visit Frank in the hospital and talks to Gabi, his mother. Frank’s been fighting leukemia for years and takes blood thinner. On the way out, she drinks an old woman.
Clara’s brothel in the Byzantium starts getting customers and workers.
Frank and Eleanor talk about being friends, but she says, “It would be fatal. For me.” She says she has to live with a secret, and she can’t tell him. She writes down her story and gives it to Frank.
We get more flashbacks to Eleanor’s mother, who we see was Clara. Clara’s dying, and she was Ruthven’s favorite. Darvell, one of Ruthven’s friends, stops by for a visit, and he’s a vampire now. We see Darvell’s origin next; he got sick and was dying, when two men came to see him. They gave him the location of a shrine. Darvell went into the batcave we saw earlier and got bitten and died inside. Ruthven ran all the way home and stole all Darvell’s property, but now, Darvell has returned.
Eleanor watches an old Hammer vampire film on TV. Frank comes to the door and talks to Clara; he knows her story now. Eleanor tells Frank that her story is true, but he doesn’t believe it; he thinks it’s all just a metaphor or something like that. Eleanor stops at the old folks’ home on the way home and eats another old woman.
The two vampire hunters find the dead man on the beach and continue their search.
Frank shows Eleanor’s story to the teacher, and he shows it to a colleague. They think that Eleanor is a very disturbed young woman. He comes to the Byzantium, and he’s surprised to find that Eleanor lives in a brothel. He threatens to get in touch with social services.
Back in the flashback, we see more of what happened to Darvell. He gave Ruthven the map to the cave, but Clara shot Ruthven and took the map herself. Later, when Eleanor turned 16, Clara took her to the cave as well.
Eleanor confronts Frank about giving away her story. She says she only picks on people who want to die. He invites her to his birthday dinner.
Meanwhile, Clara talks to Eleanor’s teacher. She tells him the rest of the true story. Darvell took her to the two old vampires, “We are the pointed nails of justice.” She followed the old men’s code until it was time to turn Eleanor. Women are not allowed to create, which was her crime. Ruthven had raped Eleanor and given her syphilis, so the only way to save her was to make her a vampire. Then Clara kills the teacher, who is later found by Morag, his associate.
Eleanor and Frank kiss, but she says it can’t possibly work out. He’s dying anyway, so she drinks some of his blood. Eleanor and Clara fight, and Noel is accidentally killed.
Morag somehow hooks up with Darvell and Savella, the old vampires, and we see they’re the men who have been tracking Clara all along, working with the police. Clara goes to see Frank, but he won’t let her inside.
The Brotherhood grab Ella, and Clara runs to help. Darvell says that Eleanor has been condemned from the moment Clara created her, since women are forbidden to create. Savella explains that his sword was made in Byzantium during the crusades, and then Darvell beheads him with it. Darvell releases Clara, who runs to release Eleanor. He says there are more members of the brotherhood who will come for them eventually.
Clara says it’s finally time for Eleanor to go out on her own, as she plans to travel with Darvell now. Eleanor, on the other hand, takes sickly Frank to the island and sends him into the shrine…
Brian’s Commentary
So… a happy ending?
These vampires show reflections in the mirror and walk outside during the daylight. They don’t have fangs, but they do have to be invited inside. Also, they can’t turn other people themselves; they need to go to that shrine.
It’s slow moving, and we’re not really sure where it’s going through most of the runtime. The main plot is about Eleanor wanting to talk about her secrets to Frank and the results of that, but the various flashbacks to the past are where the action is.
What kind of school were Eleanor and Frank attending? They were lying on their backs talking about personal problems like some kind of weird acting class or self-help group, not like any high school I’ve ever seen. Also, why would Eleanor bother going to school? She could pass for an adult and not need to take the risk.
It’s long and involved and very well done.
Kevin’s Commentary
I really enjoyed this one. It wasn’t what I expected, and I liked how it gradually filled things in, showing us the present and the past. The complex story-telling in layers is excellent.
2024 Inhuman Kiss
AKA “Sang Krasue”
Directed by Sitisiri Mongkolsiri
Written by Sitisiri Mongkolsiri, Chookiat Sakveerakul
Stars Phantira Pipityakorn, Oabnithi Wiwattanawarang, Sapol Assawamunkong
Run Time: 2 Hours, 2 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This is a Thai film, which in itself was interesting as something we don’t see too often. It was also had lore and a creature that was different from what we’ve seen before. It was very well made with great effects, a sort of horror love story. And it’s on the long side, but worth it.
Spoilery Synopsis
We open with four children walking through a field and then a jungle in Indonesia. Jerd and Noi whine about how far it’s been. As it gets dark, they come to a large abandoned house out in the woods. They’ve heard that inside this house is a chest that holds Nual’s spirit. She guards the forest. When Noi wants to leave, Ting and Sai side with Jerd to go inside. Sai gives Noi a “protective amulet” to help keep him calm inside. We soon see that there is absolutely a ghost inside the house with them… Credits roll.
Years later, the little kids have gotten older; Sai is having her period. She and Jerd talk about school being closed due to the war in Bangkok. It’s nice having some time off. They go to a hospital that has been abandoned, but they aren’t sure why. Sai helps out at the hospital, but today, she’s the only one there. Aunt Kamlai, an old woman, comes in with an injured boy, and she mentions that a Krasue ate her chickens. The old woman talks about the rules of Krasues.
Sai talks to a man in town who is going on patrol to watch out for the Krasue. No one has seen it in a long time. Ting talks to Sai about how cute and rich Jerd is, and Sai blushes.
That night, she dreams of the old house and scary things. When she wakes up, her window is open, she’s covered in blood, and all scratched up. Maybe the blood the previous night wasn’t from her period.
She and Jerd go back to the old house in the woods. There are dead animals outside the house, and then they see someone coming in the darkness. It’s Noi, and he’s got a torch. He’s just come back from the war; his parents were killed.
Then a bunch of other people arrive, and they don’t look happy. The leader of the group says they’ve come from a neighboring village, where all the chickens and small animals have been eaten by the monster. He says “If a mother Krasue spits in water and a girl drinks it, she becomes another Krasue.”
The man opens a cage. He’s literally got the dead head of a Krasue in there; they have a whole bunch of heads. These men have come to hunt the Krasue that’s been bothering the villagers.
Sai and Noi catch up. He was just getting started in medical school when the war interrupted things, and she says she’s been volunteering at the hospital. The chief of the village talks to Noi about the new men in town. He doesn’t believe in Krase and wants the men gone as soon as possible. Sai feels funny on the walk home.
In the morning, Sai vomits blood and chunks, there’s more blood on the bed, and her chest is all red and veiny. One of the nearby farmer’s cows has been torn apart.
Noi is suspicious of the Krasue hunters, but Jerd wants to learn to fight the monsters. Noi says he doesn’t believe in ghosts, but Sai isn’t so sure. That night, we see what’s been happening to Sai. Her head separates from her body and flies around the village menacing a baby. Noi follows the red glowing head back to Sai’s house and watches it reattach Sai’s head. Yes, Sai is the Krasue.
Noi leaves the hospital and goes to stay in a monastery with a monk. The monk explains more about Krasues.
As night falls, Tad and the hunters are out in force, watching to shoot the flying head. Noi comes to Sai’s house with a bunch of chickens to feed the monster so it doesn’t have to go out.
After sunrise, Sai and Noi talk about monsters, and they both know what she is now. He feeds her again that night and several nights after. They get closer and closer. Jerd, on the other hand, spends all of his time with Tad and the hunters; no one has seen the monster in nearly a month.
Sai accidentally infects Kaew, a little girl at the hospital, and she becomes a Krasue that very night. Tad lures the tentacled head out with a lizard and captures it. It fights back, and the men shoot it. Tad laughs as the Krasue dies in his hand.
Kaew’s parents tell Tad that the little girl had just gotten back from the hospital, and Tad and Jerd look at Sai. Sai realizes that she infected the girl and feels terrible.
Tad and Jerd and the men watch as Noi leads Sai out into the jungle and back to the old house. She’s drawn to the place for some reason, and they want to investigate what might be there. They find glowing bushes and plants; she eats one, and says it makes her feel better. It will stop the transformation.
The couple starts to kiss, but Sai thinks he may be infected as well. He takes the chance. Jerd feels betrayed and beats up Noi. Sai hides from Tad in the haunted house and we get a flashback to how she became infected.
Sai’s head comes off and kills one of the hunters. Then another, picking them off one by one. Shots are fired, which attracts Jerd, who fights with Tad to defend Sai. Meanwhile, a lot of the hunters are killed.
The next morning, the village has to clean up the mess and tend to all the wounded. Tad tells his story, and he says this Krasue isn’t like the others. When darkness falls, the whole village is out looking for the monster. Noi falls over in pain and Sai looks for the magic plants she picked.
Tad and the mean hunters come after Sai, but the village Chief, Sai’s father, isn’t having that. There’s a standoff as she scrambles to eat the magic plant to hold off the change.
Sai eventually comes out and shows that she’s not a monster. Tad accuses Sai of infecting the little girl, but Sai turns it around and accuses Tad of kidnapping and trying to rape her. Jerd is conflicted but takes Sai’s side against Tad. Later, Tad sprouts fangs and attacks Jerd; he’s not a Krasue, he’s something else.
Noi goes after more of the magic plant but finds that Tad has burned the whole field, so that’s not going to help again. Meanwhile, we see Jerd has been infected with something nasty and is now Tad’s unwilling minion.
Noi wants Sai to run away to Bangkok with him. Sai goes to say goodbye to Jerd and sees what he’s become. Jerd says he;s know all along that she was the monster, and he only went with the hunters to misdirect them. He’s loved Sai for years, but she only has eyes for Noi; still, he wouldn’t betray her. He begs her not to leave him now, and he’s a pathetic mess. She also says goodbye to her father.
Noi says goodbye to his monk friend. The monk explains the other half of the legend, the Krahang, the male version of the Krasue. The Krahang is cursed to destroy the heart of the Krause he loves.
It’s movie night for the village, and Sai is dragged along until she starts to feel chest pains. Noi waits for her at the rendezvous spot, and he collapses in pain. Jerd hears Tad’s twisted voice in his mind.
During the movie, in front of everyone, Sai has a seizure and does her thing. They all watch her tentacled head fly away. Meanwhile, Jerd and Tad transform into demonic-looking monsters as well.
The villagers chase the flying head through the woods while the batlike Krahangs fly in and capture her. Jerg has the head, but Noi shows up to fight him. Noi begs Jerd not to hurt her, and he hesitates. Tad charges in and the two monsters fight each other. Meanwhile, the villagers beat the crap out of Sai’s headless body. Tad rips out Jerd’s heart right in front of Jerd’s parents.
Noi carries Sai’s body as her head flies along next to him, but they’re cut off by Tad. The head pulls Tad way in the air as the monk shoots him from afar; he’s a sniper-monk.
We flash back to the previous Krasue, a woman named Nual. Her husband locked her head in a box inside that old house and chained it shut. The husband, we see, is the monk, and he knows the whole story.
Noi carries the limp Sai’s body through the woods as the villagers pursue him. Noi insists he can cure Sai, but Sai’s head knows better; her body is dead. They both cry and then kiss. She cuts his boat loose and watches him float away.
Someone shoots Sai’s head from behind. We get a flashback montage of happier times as Noi screams at Sai’s floating, lifeless head.
Brian’s Commentary
Villains.Fandom.com says, Krasue are spirits from Southeast Asian folklore depicted as the head of a young and beautiful woman that floats at night with her internal organs hanging below her - she is a vicious creature driven by extreme hunger and thirst, active throughout the night until she must return to her body by daylight: during the hours of day she will wander among the local population as a normal human, albeit with a tired expression.
This one is fun because it’s a kind of monster we haven’t seen before, in a country we don’t see much of in horror movies. It’s long, but it doesn’t get boring, although it could have been shortened a bit.
The characters and actors are all interesting and well done. The “love triangle” aspect is really well done without being too cliche. The special effects and creature makeup are excellent here, although we don’t see much of the monster for the first hour.
This was way better than I thought it’d be. Excellent!
Kevin’s Commentary
This was cool all around, with the uniqueness of a foreign land and a creature that was new to me. Two kinds of creatures, actually. I thought it was really well made and entertaining.
2024 The Dead Thing
Directed by Elric Kane
Written by Elric Kane, Webb Wilcoxen
Stars Katherine Hughes, Blu Hunt, John Karna
Run Time: 1 Hour, 34 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
A young woman generally unsatisfied with her life is also unsatisfied with the string of guys she dates and sleeps with. But then she meets someone special, and we think that it’s going to be a happily ever after. Nope, a little more complicated than that. This was pretty unique, kind of low on the scares and high on the drama, and we liked it more than disliked it.
Spoilery Synopsis
Alex looks at her phone and then she has sex. Credits roll. She spends a lot of time on her phone’s dating app, swiping and swiping, clearly not happy with the selection. Still, she dates a lot. She likes Mark, her coworker, but she won’t go there.
She meets this one guy, Kyle, with a photo of his cat, and they spend the night together and talk about lots of things. Over some time, they get close. Alex’s roommate, Cara, is engaged to Paul, but Alex doesn’t like him; neither does Cara, apparently.
Kyle doesn’t answer any of Alex’s texts, and she starts to get upset. Mark asks her if they could be a thing, but she doesn’t want to date a coworker. She’s infatuated with Kyle. She’s on a date with yet another guy and spots Kyle across the room and follows him.
Alex tracks Kyle down at his job, and the barista there says he was killed not long ago; she’s even got an “in memoriam” flyer from the funeral. She finds his earbuds on the spot where he’s supposed to have died. She tracks down the woman she saw Kyle with, and she doesn’t know much.
Alex uses the dating app and swipes on Kyle again. They arrange a date, he shows up, but he doesn’t recognize her. She knows there’s something wrong with Kyle, and she ditches him to go to work instead. Mark comes on to her, and she rebukes him.
Kyle tracks down Alex and wants to know when their first date was. His memory is sketchy, and he doesn’t sleep. Alex goes home, alone, and finds Cara on the floor, drunk. Cara’s wedding is cancelled, and she’s wearing the dress anyway, which is pathetic in Alex’s opinion.
The next night at work, Mark has quit and a new guy has started. He has ugly shoes, but he’s got a good story to go with them.
Kyle meets up with Sarah, a new girl. They get along really well until he notices some earbuds. He returns to his ugly, bloody, self, scaring the crap out of Sarah.
Alex goes home after work and finds Kyle in her bed. He tells her about getting hit by a car in the road. Her match on the dating app distracted him. He knows now he’s dead and a ghost. She knows it too, but that doesn’t stop them from having sex for the rest of the night.
Kyle watches roommate Cara from the shadows, and he’s a little creepy about it. Kyle can also see his dead-self in the mirror, and when he does, he gets a little violent.
Still, Alex and Kyle are very happy together. He seems to be a little much for her sometimes, and she’s more than a little afraid of him. He doesn’t want her to go to work and stay with him all the time.
Alex finally goes to work, and her coworker Chris says it’s been more than a week that she’s been missing. The boss thought she left town, and they replaced her.
She. Lost. Nine. Days.
Back at the apartment, Paul comes by, and Cara has left his stuff out for him to take after their nasty breakup. Kyle is there, of course, and he watches Paul messing around in Alex’s room. Kyle follows Paul home and kills him. Kyle then kills Cara too, and shuts her body in a closet.
Alex comes home to Kyle, and they argue. She wants to break up, but he’s afraid of what comes next. He vanishes, and she deletes him from the Friktion App.
Some time passes, and now Alex is dating Chris, the guy from her former job. He wants to get closer, but she’s not over Kyle yet. Kyle, on the other hand, is the jealous type, and kills him too. To make it worse, Kyle possessed Chris’s dead body. “We’ll be together always…”
She runs, but she can’t escape him. He strangles her.
Alex, now a ghost herself, still uses the dating app, and she sees her own dead strangled body when looking in a mirror.
Brian’s Commentary
We get a long way into this one before we know what’s going on, and even then, there are lots of bits we aren’t told. Kevin suspected that Kyle had been a serial killer in life, and that he would have killed Alex if he hadn’t died and lost his memory first. Honestly, that would have been more interesting than what we got.
It’s a ghostly romance story with a bit of murder and mayhem thrown in. It’s got very little action but a lot of drama. It’s fine, but it’s not going on our top ten lists this year.
Kevin’s Commentary
I went into this not knowing it was a ghost story, and I was caught off guard that Kyle was one. And when she broke up with him, there was still too much movie left for it to be that simple. I didn’t expect how far he would take things, though. I thought it was quite good and unique enough to be interesting. I was entertained.
2005 Corpse Bride
Directed by Tim Burton, Mike Johnson
Written by Tim Burton, Carlos Grangel, John August
Stars: Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Emily Watson
Run Time: 1 Hour, 17 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
The stop-action puppetry is impressive. And it is clearly a Tim Burton work. The voice cast is a collection of recognizable people, including Christopher Lee in his last horror movie role. Brian was fairly entertained, Kevin not so much.
Spoilery Synopsis
We watch as Victor Van Dort draws a picture of a butterfly. He releases it, and we follow along as it flies through the town. We soon learn that this is a musical as Victor’s parents sing about the pending wedding and how it's a great day for a wedding. Across the street, the bride’s parents sing the exact opposite song. Her family is dead broke, and they need the wedding for the money.
The parents all get together to discuss the details of the wedding while Victor keeps himself busy by playing the piano, which draws in Victoria, his bride-to-be that he’s never actually met.
Three hours later, Pastor Galswell runs them through the wedding rehearsal… one more time. There are a lot of words to memorize, and Victor’s not doing well. He can’t even get a candle to light. In the middle of the ceremony Lord Barkus Bittern comes in, and he’s all stuffy and proper. The whole thing goes badly and Glaswell cancels the ceremony until Victor can learn his vows.
Victor goes for a walk in the woods as he frets over the lines he can’t remember. He recites his vows as he meanders through the dense old, creepy woods. He finally gets it right– except something in the woods hears him and acts on it. Victor has accidentally committed to marrying a dead woman! “I do,” whispers the Corpse Bride.
She chases him out of the woods and forces him to kiss her. He wakes up in the land of the dead, and there’s a bunch of fun characters there, celebrating the newlyweds. This leads to another music number, as the skeleton band tells us how she fell in love with a bad man who killed her. There’s a whole prophecy thing involved.
Back at the house, Lord Barkus tells the others that Victor has been seen in the company of another woman.
In the deadworld, Victor tries to hide from the Bride, and they chase each other past all the sight gags. When she catches him, he apologizes for the mistake. She says her name is Emily. She gives him a wedding present, a box of bones that assembles itself into a skeleton dog, Scraps, Victor’s dog who died many years ago.
Victor comes to the conclusion that Emily should meet his parents. The only problem is that they’re still alive. They go talk to Elder Gutknecht, the local expert on lore. He’s got all kinds of books, including one that tells how to get back to the land of the living.
The couple reappears in the woods. She’s very happy to be back in the real world. Victor says he’s going to go home and prepare his parents, but he really plans on simply deserting her there. The worm in Emily’s head tells her that it’s a trick.
Victor sneaks into Victoria’s room and tells her that he cannot wait to marry her. Then he sees Emily outside the window, and then he explains things to her. It’s… awkward. When Victor denies it, she says the magic word to take him back to the land of the dead. Afterward, they argue about being married.
The worm and a black widow spider sing to Emily about her best assets.
Upstairs, Victoria goes to see Pastor Galswells about the afterlife. “Can the living marry the dead? Victor is married to a corpse bride!” He takes her home and tells her mother that Victoria is speaking in tongues. No one believes her. Barkus talks to Victoria’s parents about how much better she would do to marry him. He talks about the tragedy that took his young bride away many years ago. The parents decide that Victoria will marry Barkus.
Barkus makes it clear that he’s only marrying Victoria for the family money, not realizing they don’t have any. The servant, Mayhew, dies accidentally.
Victor apologizes to Emily for how he treated her. None of this was according to plan. They play a duet on the piano, and all is fine. Suddenly, the alarm sounds– it’s a new arrival, Mayhew, who feels much better now. He tells Victor about the upcoming wedding.
Elder Gutkrept comes in and explains that “Till death do us part” means they aren’t really married. Unless Victor actually dies. Victor overhears all this, and he agrees to do it. The whole town is invited to the wedding, and spiders sing a song about making Victor a new suit.
Back in the real world, just as Barkis begins his speech, all the dead characters arise, which is quite a shock to everyone, all over town. Turns out, most of the villagers recognize the dead as their deceased relatives, and everyone is actually happy about it.
Victoria explains to Barkus that her family is broke, which comes as a shock to him. The Old Pastor tells the dead, “You shall not enter here!” as the dead come to the church for the wedding.
Victor and Emily are at the church getting married and Victoria walks in to see it. Emily fills his cup of poison, but she can’t go through with it; she doesn’t want him to die. She doesn’t want to steal Victor away from Victoria. It’s all very touching– until Barkus comes in to break things up; he’s already married to Victoria.
Emily recognizes Barkus as the husband who murdered her. This leads to an epic fight between Barkus and Victor, with the dead mostly just getting in the way. Barkus wins, and then he picks up the wine glass and drinks it, not realizing it’s poison. Barkus is now one of the dead, subject to their rules. The crowd drags him back downstairs.
The Corpse Bride gives Victor his ring back, setting him free from his promise. She walks off into the moonlight and breaks up into a swarm of butterflies. Victor and Victoria are left behind in the church for a happy ending.
Brian’s Commentary
This is probably the most Tim Burtony of all the Tim Burton animated films. He didn’t make much that looked like this afterward. It basically takes everything he learned from “A Nightmare Before Christmas” and brings back the best of that. The problem, if there is one, is that there isn’t much new here.
It’s not subtle– everything in the deadworld is bright and colorful, and the real world is all dark gray and dull. There are a few songs, but none are especially memorable, and there aren’t that many.
The cast, on the other hand, is pretty amazing. Every character is played by someone you’ll recognize. If you’re a fan of this kind of animation (I am), you’ll probably like this, but it’s middle-of-the-road of the Burton films.
Christopher Lee appears in several scenes as the terrifying Pastor Galswell. He does get the line “You shall not enter here,” a line from Gandalf the Grey, a role he wanted but was too old to play. His voice here is unmistakable, although he didn’t do any songs.
Kevin’s Commentary
I can appreciate this for the work it is. For personal entertainment value, I wasn’t into it. A few chuckles here and there. I found myself concentrating on other things, and at about the halfway point, I realized about 20 minutes had passed without my noticing.
Short Films:
2020 Short Film: The Itch
Directed by Connor O. McIntyre
Written by Ethan Walden
Stars: Shayn Herndon, Chelsea Jordan, Nicholas Daue, Bobby Gutierrez
Run Time: 11:40
Watch it:
What Happens
Enzo asks his girlfriend Abby if she’s going in to work today, but Abby says she’s going to stay home today. She takes a shower and finds a red mark on the back of her neck, and it itches. The itch gets progressively worse, and she misses more and more work. Enzo keeps saying there’s nothing much there and she needs to suck it up and move on with her life. Eventually, she’s had enough of both problems.
Commentary
It’s very well filmed, and it’s always clear exactly what’s going on at all times. The two leads are very good here, the body horror effects are very well done, and overall, it's a lot of fun.
2018 Short Film: Last One Screaming
Directed by Matt Devino
Written by Matt Devino
Stars Camila Greenberg, Olivia Mackenzie-Smith, Derek Alvarado
Run Time: 9:31
Watch it:
What Happens
Ashley sits in the police interrogation room, waiting to be interviewed by a psychologist. The two detectives who already questioned her think she’s a loon and guilty of at least three murders. The doctor enters, and she seems to understand completely about the Satanic puzzle box they found in the cabin in the woods. What really happened there?
Commentary
Did Ashley kill all her friends? The answer becomes obvious quickly, but the question is why? Even more questionable is the psychiatrist, who seems to believe her every word.
We’ve seen slashers and cabins-in-the-woods before, and we often wonder how the survivor is going to explain all the bodies to the police. Now, we see how that usually goes.
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