Salutations, traveler of The Internets! Welcome to William's Bloody Hell, so named after our founder, Sir Bloody William.
He is seen in the likeness above in a rare, 19th century woodcut. This
image was rumoured to have been
commissioned after a bout of unpleasantness
in the White Chapel district of London. Do enjoy your stay and peruse our many, varied offerings, much of which cannot be found elsewhere!
:: The Corpse Bride ::
by William the Bloody
In Victorian era Europe, Victor is engaged to be married to Victoria, a girl he's never met. His parents are fishmongers, but do quite well, and are "new money," and Victoria's parents are "old money," but secretly penniless. Both sets of parents see this marriage as their family's saving grace; Victor's so that they can finally enter high society, and Victoria's for saving them from the poor house. On the day before the wedding is the rehearsal, and Victor meets his betrothed for the first time moments before and is rather smitten by her, and she him. Unfortunately, Victor is having a hard time to remember his wedding vows, and the vicar declares that this is because Victor has no desire to get married at all and he better have it down soon. Victor takes a walk deep into the woods, practicing his vows all the while. When it feels like he has it pat, Victor gets confident, pretends some trees are his in-laws-to-be and how he's impressed them, and that a twig in the ground is Victoria's finger, on which he slips the ring, as the last part of the vows. Well, it seems that twig was indeed actually a finger to a dead bride in a shallow grave and upon receiving Victor's ring, rises from the Earth and says "I do." Victor gets pulled into the underworld as the corpse's husband, the only live man down below, and now must find a way to not only correct his horrible mistake of wedding a dead woman, but also return to the world above and to the side of his rightful bride, Victoria.
The Good: Tim Burton is revisiting the stop motion medium of Nightmare Before Christmas, and it's just lovely. The studio has even advanced their animation so that it's smoother than ever. Really, The Corpse Bride's veil animation is terrific as it billows and flows around her. Burton is also back in his element of dual environments (re: Edward Scissorhands with the castle and suburbia) and does a neat job of directing both: regular life is nearly a black and white movie, whereas the underworld is a snazzy colour-fest. Danny Elfman is back as Burton's traditional composer, delivering a wonderful score wrought with harpsichords and organs. The celebrity voice actors did a fine job. Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter were excellent in the two lead rolls (Victor and the Corpse Bride) as was Christopher Lee as the vicar. I loved Victor and the Corpse Bride's characters; Victor was a cute, well-meaning, but clumsy guy and the Bride wasn't all creepy with her undead-ness, no, she was nice and fun, but a little jealous when appropriate. I also loved the character designs of just about everyone; the vicar with his tall, tall hat (made me laugh, that) and Victoria's father reminded me of the stop motion animation of yore (re: Santa Claus is Coming to Town, that sort of thing), so I was just tickled by that.
The Bad: Most of the songs weren't that great. I quite liked two of them, but the rest were boring and flat "book numbers." The ending of the film just sort of... happens and stops abruptly. It REALLY could have done with an epilogue, but no, it just stops. The twisted murder plots are of course not in the folk tale, but I don't think Hollywood could have had vicious raiders ambushing a bridal caravan and butchering the bride. Oh, and what was with the Peter Lorre worm???
In the end, It just wasn't as good as I'd hoped. The animation was great and so was the direction, but after Nightmare, I was going in expecting to be "wowed" and I wasn't. The songs were bland and the ending was lacking, but the rest of it was pretty okay. It just should have been loads better than it was.
B-
