Revisiting Tim Burton's Short Film 'Vincent' 40 Years Later

TV & Film

Oct 17

Tim Burton's Vincent — Image Source: YouTube

On October 1st, 1982 at the Chicago International Film Festival, a young animator named Tim Burton released Vincent, a 6-minute long stop-motion short film. Vincent marked Disney’s second horror film, behind Watcher in the Woods. There is no official release for the short film, and it can only be found physically on the 2008 Special and Collector’s Editions of The Nightmare Before Christmas DVDs. The Vincent Price Estate hosts the film on their Vincent Price Legacy YouTube channel.

Vincent Malloy is a 7-year-old boy who pretends to be like the actor Vincent Price, who not only serves as narrator for the film but was also one of Burton’s idols. In addition to the two men forming a close friendship, Price would go on to star in Edward Scissorhands, his final live-action film before his death in 1993. In the years after Vincent, Vincent said that the short film was "the most gratifying thing that ever happened. It was immortality — better than a star on Hollywood Boulevard".

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At the time, Burton was an apprentice animator at Disney Animation Studios but was underutilized because his style of animation was not “Disney Material.” While Burton worked for Disney, he created character concept art for The Fox and the Hound, Tron, and The Black Cauldron. His art never made it into any of the films. However, Disney executive Julie Hickson and Tom Wilhite, Head of Creative Development recognized Burton’s unique creativity and skill and felt that he deserved a chance to create something that showed that. Wilhite gave Burton $60,000 to create the film which took two months to complete. After Vincent, Burton made Frankenweenie, another short film, which upon completion Disney fired him under the pretense that he wasted company resources and funding on a movie too dark and scary for children to see.

Based on a poem Burton wrote of the same name, he initially thought Vincent would work as a children’s picture book but began to think that a different medium would be more beneficial to the story. The poem, written in rhyming couplets, was a homage to Dr. Seuss and served as a juxtaposition between the boring reality and dramatic imagination of Vincent. Burton reflected, “I think it probably has more to do with being inspired by Dr. Seuss. . . The rhythm of his stuff spoke to me very clearly. Dr. Seuss's books were perfect: right number of words, the right rhythm, great subversive stories."

Shot in striking black and white, the film is a pastiche of 1920s-era German Expressionist films. Celebrating the macabre and the dark aesthetic that Burton would eventually go on to be known for, he creates a complete character study in six minutes. As the short goes on, Vincent imagines himself in numerous scenarios inspired by Edgar Allan Poe and Vincent Price, both of whose films had an effect on Burton as a young child. He welcomes his Aunt into his house while envisioning dipping her in hot wax for his museum; a callback to Price’s House of Wax. He also imagines doing experiments on his dog, Abercrombie, including turning him into a zombie. This would later serve as the inspiration for Frankenweenie, first as a short film, and then as a full-length animated feature film. Eagle-eyed fans may notice a pre-The Nightmare Before Christmas Jack Skellington and a Saturn Sandworm from Beetlejuice.

Burton also utilizes a film style called match cutting, where one scene is used to transition into the next scene. This Vincent-himself-as-Vincent Price creates the visual of Vincent’s descent into “madness,” a la Edgar Allan Poe. He is constantly reminded by his mother, "You're not Vincent Price, you're Vincent Malloy. You're not tormented, you're just a young boy." His obsession with Poe leads to Vincent becoming frightened of the occurrences in his alternate world.

Tim Burton’s dark yet eccentric style is immediately apparent in the first few seconds of Vincent. Even after 40 years, the short film holds up well and honors the late, great Vincent Price. His deep booming voice verberates through the art and brings the viewer into Vincent Malloy’s real and macabre alternate reality. Perhaps we can ask nicely for an extended version in the near future.