Night of the living pets

Frankenweenie

(2012)

The first experiment goes perfectly, as Victor sparks his beloved mutt Sparky, killed by a car, back to life. The next experiment, performed with less pure motives, is more spectacular but ultimately less successful, and once every kid in the neighborhood gets hold of the secret, and science loses all connection with the heart, mistakes are made. Fierce and outsized mistakes, a dead turtle becoming Gamara-like, sea monkeys becoming Gremlinesque, and a cat named Mr. Whiskers, just as annoying in life as the name suggests, morphing into a fanged, batwinged harpy.

It's a pleasant enough flick, but I feel sorry for all the little kids who saw this and then were crushed to know that their own dead Spunkies and Tiges are staying dead for the duration, and hooking them up to car batteries is, at best, going to have no effect whatever. What a ripoff.

My favorite part of the movie, I think, was the Karen O song in the end credits, at the same time an original piece of ear candy and an hommage to the Mickey and Sylvia classic "Love Is Strange."