In the latest clip from Tim Burton’s upcoming Frankenweenie, substitute teacher Mr. Ryzkruski, voiced by Martin Landau, galvanizes class with a presentation on the power of electricity. And he does so in the image of a horror movie legend.
“Mr. Ryzkruski is loosely based on Vincent Price,” Frankenweenie producer Allison Abbate told me. “But there are a lot of old movie icons that served as inspiration. Even the casting of Martin Landau seemed like a natural [fit].”
And it’s not just Price that’s being brought back to life. Reanimation is at the heart of Burton‘s stop-motion feature — the whole film is a reboot of his cultastic 1984 short of same name.
Landau deservedly scored an Oscar for his dead-on performance as Dracula icon Bela Lugosi in Burton’s brilliant Ed Wood. But it is Price, who appeared in Edward Scissorhands, that remains Burton’s renewable muse.
From serving as narrator and inspiration for Burton’s impressive debut 1982 short film Vincent to this year’s feature-length Frankenweenie, Price’s influential spirit inhabits some small or large part in almost everything the decorated director has ever made.
This article appeared at WIRED
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