In the small town of New Holland, ravaged by rain and thunder, Victor Frankenstein lives with his family. Young Victor loves science and spends most of his days doing experiments with his best and only friend, his dog Sparky.

One day tragedy strikes and Victor loses his best friend. Unable to cope with the grief, Victor remembers a school science project where electricity activated the muscles of a long dead frog. On a rainy night, he digs up his friend and starts the unorthodox experiment of trying to resuscitate Sparky and, to his surprise, it works. Victor and Sparky are reunited, but now he faces another problem - to keep this amazing revival away from his nosey and intrusive classmate Edgar, who wants to know the secret to secure a win at the upcoming science fair. When Sparky gets spotted in public, Edgar and three of Victor’s other cunning classmates steal Victor’s idea to create the living dead of their own past pets.

Burton is back! Finally I must say. It is dark, somber (in the best possible way) funny and beautiful. I saw the short on which Frankenweenie is based years and years ago and it always stayed with me. Such a nice story. It is obviously based on Mary Shelley’s masterpiece Frankenstein, only this is a kids' version, or as close of a kids' version as there could be.

If you are a film buff you will recognise numerous references to classic horror actors and films. For instance, one of the classmates, trying to steal Victor’s idea is an obvious Boris Karloff, and his animal of choice to bring back from the dead is mummified. His friend Toshiaki awakens an enormous turtle monster, suitably named Shelley. The girl next door is named Elsa Van Helsing (Van Helsing is, of course, from Dracula and Elsa, I assume, is named after Elsa Lanchester who played The Bride of Frankenstein) owns a dog with a very particular haircut.

This is where Burton’s obvious passion for horror and sci-fi shines through, which, in the last few films, felt very lost, or was at least very far away. He went back to his roots of stop motion animation, in black and white (which is genius) and with character design that could come from no other than him. The humour is just the right amount of dark and melancholy humour you’d expect, and it really takes you back to the early 90s Burton we all love.

Burton uses old familiar voices in his casting, Catherine O’Hara as the mother, Winona Ryder as the neighbour, Martin Landau as the eccentric science teacher and Martin Short as the father. All have previously worked with Burton and that helps with bringing the film to the level he is suppose to be on.

As for kids, there’s much in there for them. Cute (but scary) characters, nice ending and an angle all kids like, the dog. However it is a heavy subject, most kids have or at least want a pet of some kind and the film deals with the loss of something so precious for someone young. Although, it has a humorous undertone and is lighthearted enough for older kids to understand, ultimately it is more of a film for adults.

All and all I think it is a great piece of animation and a big step up for Tim Burton and it feels like he has found his way back to what he does best, gothic horror.

FRANKENWEENIE had its UK premiere at London Film Festival last night and will be on general release from October 17.