TIM BURTON LOVES HIS WORK

By Kate O'Hare (Tribune Media Services)

From The Arizona Republic, 10.25.1998 Sunday, Final Chaser

As a kid, Tim Burton used to go to the creature-double-feature at the local theater and wish he was the guy in the Godzilla suit. Many years later, he's one of Hollywood's most innovative directors, with such films as The Nightmare Before Christmas, Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, Beetlejuice and Mars Attacks! to his credit.

This week, he's the on-air host for AMC's Monsterfest: House of Horrors movie marathon, getting to introduce some of his favorite films from inside reputed haunted houses.

But Burton never dreamed he'd go so far in the film business. "I made Super 8 films like every other kid, but I didn't ever think I would get the chance to (make movies), so it's nice to be surprised in life. I thought I would just draw. I basically lucked into it in some ways."

As a Disney animator (he attended the Cal Arts Institute on a Disney fellowship), Burton worked on such films as The Fox and the Hound and The Black Cauldron. He also made two shorts: the animated Vincent, an homage to Vincent Price, and Frankenweenie (1982), a black-and-white combination of live-action and stop-motion animation that took a canine view of the Frankenstein story, with a little boy and the dog he brings back to life.

And each October, Disney Channel resurrects Frankenweenie, which stars Shelley Duvall, Daniel Stern and Barrett Oliver. "When I first finished it," says Burton, "it was such a weird situation for me because, on the one hand, I got the opportunity to make these short films, which is just incredible, but there was a ratings problem with it, so it never got out there. But I'm glad, (almost) 20 years later, better late then never."

While other directors who found success with science fiction and/or horror--such as Steven Spielberg or James Cameron--have moved on to more mainstream films, Burton has stayed with the genre. He's currently in England scouting locations for his next film, Sleepy Hollow, based on the classic Washington Irving tale about schoolteacher Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman. Johnny Depp, who starred in Burton's Edward Scissorhands and Ed Wood, plays Crane; Christina Ricci (The Addams Family) plays Katrina Van Tassel.

"There certainly is a missing kind of horror film, (the kind) that I like," Burton says. "That's why I wanted to do this movie, Sleepy Hollow, to make the kind of movie that I like to see."

What keeps Burton interested in the genre? "My problem is, I never think I'm making a horror film. I always feel like I'm making a realistic picture, no matter how they turn out. I guess that says something . . . they always seem realistic to me. I always go in with the intention that it's a serious, classic movie, but it never turns out quite that way."

Burton doesn't make a big distinction between science fiction and horror, a topic that has fueled many late-night arguments among genre-movie buffs. "I've often thought of that when I'm in the video store," he says, "trying to figure out what the distinction is. I don't know if The Omega Man . . . is that a science-fiction film or a horror film?"

Whichever it is, Burton is a serious fan of the 1971 adaptation of Richard Matheson's "I Am Legend," which pitted lone survivor Heston against post-apocalyptic zombies.

"I love Charlton Heston, that's one of my favorite films. I watch that movie all the time, and I find something new. There was the whole period of him in The Omega Man and Soylent Green, fantastic. Nobody like him, nobody like him. The Omega Man, if it were on a constant loop, I would be happy. It's a great movie.

"Nobody else treated that crap as seriously as he did. I remember seeing him and being afraid of him as a child, which is great. You believe that he believes it, and it's just like, whoa, tense."

And like any horror fan, he struggles with one lingering question: How did the Mummy ever catch anybody?

"Yeah, not only is he slow, but he usually has a limp, and one hand in a sling, so it's like being attacked by your grandmother or something, which would be scarier."

NEXT WEEK: Shaking up Earth: Final Conflict.

IN OTHER NEWS: Even as he cranks up production on Sleepy Hollow, Tim Burton is looking ahead--to television. Variety reports that Burton has signed on with Columbia TriStar TV Distribution to executive-produce "Lost in Oz," a syndicated series based on the 40-plus Oz books written by L. Frank Baum. Tentatively set for a fall '99 release, the series is said to focus on the lesser-known Oz characters and tales.