Edward Scissorhands (1990)

When I put Edward Scissorhands on this list of Halloween films I did so because I thought it was going to be a spooky Halloween film. But if I am being honest it read to me as much more of a Christmas movie. It may be controversial to say but to me it just felt very similar to the vibe of Nightmare Before Christmas where it lies in this strange in between space of both Halloween and Christmas. However if I was to choose I would say Nightmare Before Christmas leans more towards Halloween where as Edward Scissorhands leans more towards Christmas. Of course both have different elements but for me if you are considering yourself a Halloween seasonal film it has to be at least heavily rely upon a spooky atmosphere and moral. Instead Edward Scissorhands to me feels a touch more light. Maybe it is because it is simply based around Christmas but I also think this storyline of outsider acceptance also made it feel more Christmas catered, it wasn't until he was ran out of town and had everything turned against him that it truly became more of a Halloween fit. And even then it could just have easily became a Christmas film if they simply had the town realise the error of their ways and 'embrace the Christmas spirit'.

For that reason I found this a difficult one to connect with. I do think the film alone was done well, perhaps not my favourite we have watched but still a decent film to watch. I just was hoping for more cliche Halloween element but that did not come. I would even take a lot of convincing to consider this a monster movie. It was clear that Edward Scissorhands was supposed to be framed as a 'Frankenstein monster' type film where your classic beautiful female lead falls in love with a beastly monster with a heart of gold. The difference with other monster movies is that they are actual monsters! I am not sorry to say I do not consider Edward a monster purely because he has scissors for hands and was made by an inventor. It is as the characters in the films say themselves, the knifes are more a disability than cause for him to be a monster. There was great potential to have him a monster if the had changed one more thing, make his insides cogs. Whenever he accidentally cut himself he would bleed actually blood which again made him appear more human despite being made. But if they were to make it that whenever he cut himself it gave way to a wire or inside he was more robotic it would show that he is even further away from the biology of a human. In that same vein it would have looked more appealing if instead of having scars the same way a human would he hand stapled any issues he had. In the end it made more sense narratively having him with human skin and scars because it gave him a way to connect to Joyce and her beauty work but I still wish he was made more monsterous.

Mentioning Joyce, I loved her character. Firstly opening to her trying to sell Avon gave me such a surprise wave of nostalgia, I used to love Avon! I'm really outing my childhood but I would always flip through the magazines and beg my parents for half the stuff, knowing fully well I'd never used them. I just thought the packaging was cute and wanted to fit in with everyone else. So from the start I was obsessed with her but from that moment onwards she only showed me how greatly she really did care about Edward. At the start I was sure she was only doing it to create money by making an example out of Edward and gaining attention which would lead to her thriving business. Then as time went on and others began to view Edward as a villain and dangerous I thought she would flip her view on him to save face and rescue her business while she still can. However that never happened, from the moment he arrived on screen to the moment he was being chased away Joyce was always trying to defend him. She would talk positively about him to her family when he first stayed and even on camera during his interview when he mentioned getting surgery to have real hands she encouraged him saying what made him special was his spirit not his scissors for hands. Going to show that even if he did change it was what he stood for that mattered to her as if he was her own child.

That part could be argued that she was playing the part because she was on television and business was going well but even when the town turned on him she was talking greatly of him. After the accident with Alex she was trying to explain to the crowd he meant well, that he wasn't a killer he just was trying to help. Similarly she mentioned to Kim that she was regretting bringing him to town not because of how they were affecting the family but because of how the town was treating him. It is a complicated decision to think about because as great as she enjoy his company when everyone else is treating them horribly it does make you want to retreat backwards to shelter them but that too can have it's disadvantages and make them feel ashamed. However through it all the meaning behind what she did was always for the greater respect of Edward. All that to say I do not understand why they never continued to see Edward. At the end Kim told everyone that Edward had been killed in order to ensure no one would ever bother him again but she knew the truth and knew he was alive. For that same reason Joyce knew he was good, that his heart was pure and yet none of them visited him? Were they not able to sneak away at some point even once a year to see him and catch up. That makes no sense to me.

Moving onto Kim, again I did not feel the chemistry from this duo. I feel like it is very common in these kinds of films to have a love interest but they are never explored upon. It would have given the same reaction if they had literally made a random character we saw for the first time suddenly confess their feelings for Ed. I know what they were trying to establish but quite simply it wasn't achieved. They had no moment together and that is why it felt so insincere. It was clear there were moments when Kim was begining to change how she felt as she realised how sweet Ed really was but they never had an alone interaction. The closest they got to an interaction was when Edward was carving ice and she was dancing in the 'snow' he created. That ended in him accidently cutting her hand so how that would be considered romance I'm not sure. It became clear the bar was in literal hell because all that happened was Kim realised Ed was kind when her current boyfriend wasn't. That is all it takes! For a boy to be nice! And that's not even mentioning that the boyfriend wasn't exactly the worst character on the planet either. Was he a dick? Yes! But I was expecting him to go around yelling obscenities at him or pushing him around which never took place. The most that happened was he ditched him when breaking into his house. After that he was basically sticking up for the people he saw get hurt. A lot of that did come from jealousy because he could tell Kim was pulling away but it also isn't that difficult to make sense of when he was only pushing Edward away after he saw Kim and Alex get hurt. Are the morals of his character still fucked up, of course. It isn't as if he is a saint he was drinking and driving and breaking into his own house because he knew his dad wouldn't agree which shows how disobedient he is. But in terms of conflict between Edward and him it was very minimal. Meaning that when he died I wasn't exactly rooting for his downfall.

Overall the movie was not what I expected. I can understand why it is a Halloween film though I do not agree. The same way that Die Hard is technically a Christmas film I see why this is technically a Halloween film. I would watch it again but as a communal activity not necessarily by myself because it is not something I see myself obsessing over. With a little tweaking and the addition of one or two more scenes I think this could have done a lot better. However the humour of having this seemingly monster be acclimated into suburban life was something I enjoyed which is where the majority of the good points come from for me.