Vincent (1982 film)

Vincent is a 1982 stop motion short horror film written, designed and directed by Tim Burton, and produced by Rick Heinrichs. It is the second Disney horror film, the first being The Watcher in the Woods. At approximately six minutes in length, there is currently no individual release of the film except for a few bootleg releases. It can be found on the 2008 Special Edition and Collector's Edition DVDs of The Nightmare Before Christmas as a bonus feature and on the Cinema16 DVD American Short Films.

The film is narrated by actor Vincent Price, a lifelong idol and inspiration for Burton. From this relationship, Price would go on to appear in Burton's Edward Scissorhands. Vincent Price later said that the film was "the most gratifying thing that ever happened. It was immortality — better than a star on Hollywood Boulevard".

Vincent is the poetry story of a 7-year-old boy, Vincent Malloy, who pretends to be like the actor Vincent Price (who narrates the film). He does experiments on his dog Abercrombie in order to create a horrible ravenous Zombie dog. He is obsessed with the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, and it is his detachment from reality when reading them that leads to his delusions that he is in fact a tortured artist, deprived of the woman he loves, mirroring certain parts of Poe's "The Raven". The film ends with Vincent feeling terrified of being tortured by the going-ons of his make-believe world, quoting "The Raven" as he falls to the floor in frailty, believing himself to be dead.

While working as a conceptual artist at Walt Disney Productions, Tim Burton found himself two allies in the shape of Disney executive Julie Hickson, and Head of Creative Development Tom Wilhite. The two were impressed with Burton's unique talents and, while not "Disney material", they felt he deserved to be given respect. As such, in 1982, Wilhite gave Burton $60,000 to produce an adaptation of a poem Burton had written titled Vincent. Burton had originally planned the poem to be a children's short story book but thought otherwise.