Going into seeing Corpse Bride, I remembered watching it at the pictures back in the 2000s and coming away rather underwhelmed. I remember thinking that the music felt very phoned-in. As I went for a rewatch in 2022, I struggled to remember if there were actual songs in it.
Trouble is, Corpse Bride was the first time the team of The Nightmare Before Christmas had reunited for an animated film and a lot of the marketing had been hyping that up. A decade of fans/wee goths had been raised on the Christmas/Halloween classic and were ready to devour more in that vein, myself included. I remember being disappointed in Corpse Bride, but now twenty years on, I wondered if it wasn’t maybe just its inability to live up to the hype.
And well . . . no, it’s not. Corpse Bride doesn’t work. And on rewatch it’s clear there are a number of reasons why.
First the music and songs are very forgettable. Name me one song from Corpse Bride? See, you can’t. Also the sound levels are all over the place, with dialogue descending to a whisper, then background music crashing in in a cacophony. The whole audioscape of the film needs another going over. Frequently in songs people are speak-singing, rather than actually singing, so a chorus sounds like the garble of a rabble, all lyrics indistinct and lost. This is a problem for the film overall, as the Corpse Bride’s backstory is told entirely in song, so if you don’t follow, you’re missing a chunk of characterisation, as well as (spoilers) the whole crux of the finale.
Secondly, in a musical, which this is, you usually open with one of two things, an “I want” song or “We are” song, establishing the world or your main character, both of which kick off the plot. Your world has a central premise which provides a challenge, or your character’s desires precipitate a journey. Corpse Bride opens with Victor and Victoria’s parents singing about how they want a perfect wedding to help them trade their status for wealth and vice versa. Like, it’s the least give-a-fuck-able aspect of the whole story. It doesn’t tell us anything about our main character, Victor. It doesn’t set up a world in which the creepy possibility of marrying a corpse might be possible. Imagine if the opening had been a spooky retelling of the legend of the Corpse Bride, her elopement, vanishing and suspected murder. That would have established your title character way before she is actually (rather belatedly) introduced in the film. And the foreshadowing would set some stakes before we’ve been bored to death by a dreary wedding rehearsal.
Victor at no point sings an “I want” song. He is a non-entity of a character. Meant to be a charming, bumbling, slightly sensitive, English, young man, he has no real personality beyond that. He seems reticent but resigned to being married, slightly encouraged when he meets Victoria for 5 seconds, which in the language of movies now means they’re in love, but willing to ditch her at the first sign of obstacle and kill himself to be with the Corpse Bride. Throughout this, he doesn’t really have highs and lows, he doesn’t fall down, despair and dig deep, he doesn’t learn a lesson. He’s a passenger throughout the entire film.
Far more interesting, both visually and in characterisation is the Corpse Bride. Both the animation and Helena Bonham Carter’s performance make her a much more dynamic and engaging person, with an interesting backstory and clear motivation. She has a clear “I want” number, eager to fulfil her thwarted dream of marriage. And she has enough screen-time to actually establish a rapport with Victor, enough that they could genuinely seem to have chemistry. And Victor seems willing to die to be with her, which would indicate a stronger feeling towards her than Victoria, who he has a simpering, pallid, awkward interaction with over a piano once.
And that’s the other thing about this film, it’s all over the place. Victor ends up with Victoria, not the Corpse Bride, in an ending so wrong it’s up there with Pretty In Pink (I’m with you Duckie, never forget). Like, the most he has in common with Victoria is their names. They have two scenes together, neither of which go beyond awkward politeness. While there is a gaping chasm where Victor’s character should be, the Corpse Bride at least seems to sweep him up in her own highs and lows. Instead of the romance culminating in a Romeo-style self-sacrifice to be with a woman he has some desire to be with, and resolve her sad tale with a happy ending, he ends up with the lassie that will make is his status-obsessed parents happy. What kind of ending is that?
It’s not just the ending I have a problem with, the whole movie is baggy. This isn’t something you see a lot in animation, because it is so fucking expensive and time intensive to make, it’s usually been storyboarded to within an inch of its life. Unlike live action, you can’t just do a rewrite and pull some reshoots. Scenes take months and years to make. So with this, you would think that the film would be tight, just scene-scene-scene, bang-bang-bang. But you find yourself watching scenes thinking, what is this for? It feels wooly and airy, with a lack of focus. Whose emotional through-line are we meant to be following? It’s only an hour and 10 minutes, but it feels long.
So in conclusion, it’s not just a matter of not living up to hype. Corpse Bride fails on its own demerits. Which is sad because there was a nugget of a cool idea there, and all the talent present to make it work. It just doesn’t.