Vincent

Vincent (1982) is Tim Burton's animated short, and you can watch it online on iFILM. Seven-year-old Vincent Malloy looks like an ordinary boy, but in his head he is Vincent Price, the horror-film star: he dreams of experimenting on his aunt, dipping the family dog in wax to make a zombie, and he reads Edgar Allan Poe instead of bedtime stories.

This six-minute black-and-white stop-motion piece is one of Burton's earliest films, made while he was still at Disney. Vincent Price himself narrates it in rhyming verse, playing the boy's idol. Everything Burton would later become is already here: sharp shadows, gothic gloom and real tenderness toward odd kids. Stream Vincent online on iFILM.