When Tim Burton worked 35 years ago on one of his very first projects, "Doctor of Doom", he was just 20 years old. In this horror movie spoof, he cast a couple guys who contributed considerably to animation in the next decades, namely two-time Academy Award winner Brad Bird and Academy Award nominee Chris Buck Also on board Jerry Reese with whom Burton kept working on future projects (Luau) afterward.The short film is slightly over 11 minutes long and the best part for me was right at the beginning when Burton fools the viewer by lending seemingly harmless situations in family life an evil touch through smart visual and sound work. As for the whole film, you can definitely see that the director is still very early in his career. Another notable scene is a fight sequence with an elephant-like creature. First I thought this was intended to spoof the Elephant Man, but then checked and saw "Doctor of Doom" was released slightly before the David Lynch movie.Anyway, if you're interested in very early work from today's directors or just a Burton completionist, this one's worth a watch. Otherwise you're not really missing much.

Doctor of Doom (1979)*** (out of 4) This Tim Burton short isn't going to be for everyone but fans of low-grade "B" horror movies should find some entertainment in it. What we basically have is a doctor going to a dinner party where he's made fun of and soon afterwards he returns home and sends a monster to attack the people. There's a Mexican horror film called DOCTOR OF DOOM and I wondered while I was watching this if Burton was paying some sort of homage to it. I think the Mexican genre was clearly on display here including the look of the doctor and for the life of me I couldn't help but think the monster's (fake) mask was inspired by the cult classic THE BRAINIAC. Of course, I don't know any of this for certain but I'd really like to hear from the man himself and see if these Mexican films were an influence here. Overall the film is obviously very cheap and technically it's not too pretty but I think there's a lot of imagination going on and overall it's fun for what it is. Again, those fans of 50's horror movies should find some charm here.