"With this hand I will lift your sorrows. Your cup will never be empty, for I will be your wine. With this candle, I will light your way into darkness. With this ring, I ask you to be mine."

Year: 2005

Directed by: Tim Burton & Mike Johnson

Written by: John August, Caroline Thompson & Pamela Pettler (screenplay) and Tim Burton & Carlos Grangel (characters)

A nervous groom keeps screwing up the wedding rehearsal, so he goes to the woods to practice his vows. Unfortunately he puts the ring on a corpse's finger, and he realises he's now married to a dead woman.

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Corpse Bride is one of those almost classic movies you should watch on Halloween if you're not too into horror movies. That's kind of the speciality of Tim Burton: he makes dark movies emo or goth teens are way too invested in. I don't know if it has to do with the plots or the aesthetic.

But the aesthetic of Corpse Bride is amazing: almost colourless land of the living, the colourful and fun land of the dead. The characters look amazing, everyone looks different and has different shapes of their faces and body. It's a nice change from typical animations, but of course the main characters are tall and skinny with the typical Burton styled faces: pale skin, huge eyes with dark circles around them. Still, every little detail in the animation is amazing. I could talk about stop-motion animation all day long, but perhaps not.

Danny Elfman's music is pretty but generic. It's been heard over and over again. Sure, Victor's Piano Solo may give the viewer goose bumps, but other than that, every song feels like it's been done so many times before. The soundtrack is alright, but could be way better.

The story is interesting and well-written. It's short, and many things are left unexplained, but it's better that way. It's good that it ends quite suddenly without anything like "FEW WEEKS LATER" because that would kind of ruin the moment. The movie is about what it is about, it doesn't need anything else. The structure of the story is very similar to The Nightmare Before Christmas. No, it's not entirely the same, it's not "copied", but it has some sort of parallels and symmetry.

Corpse Bride is a good movie to watch around Halloween, but that's about it. I can't imagine watching it during the summer or anything. Corpse Bride has charisma, unique aesthetic and astonishing setting.

☆☆☆☆

4 / 10