Tim Burton's name has become synonymous with a naturally engrossing corner of the world of film, featuring dark storylines - that often are contrasted with comedy or lively and surrealist worlds - and visual stylings that draw clearly from the gothic genre, albeit to varying degrees. Thankfully, many other movies approach filmmaking from a similar perspective, meaning fans of Burton films have a fair catalog of other works to enjoy.
Movies like Beetlejuice, Sweeney Todd, and Alice in Wonderland established a unique appeal to Tim Burton movies, which aren't afraid to go into grim territory, but usually add a healthy dose of comedy to contrast with the bleaker side of their narratives and worlds. This allows audiences to get engrossed in the universes these films build while also not finding them overly grim experiences, and indeed often get to see a lot of supernatural figures and tropes from a different and oft more optimistic perspective.
Over the years, plenty of films have been crafted that follow along similar lines, be that because they draw from the popularity of movies like Tim Burton's own filmography, or because they lean into the wider appeal of dark-leaning storylines and worlds that still keep a sense of whimsy or spectacle at their core in a similar manner.
Monster House is one of the most underrated animated horror comedies of all time, having fallen under the radar for even many fans of this subgenre of story. However, the balance of scares and laughs the film and its story provides, as well as its capacity for being more sympathetic towards its spooky characters, makes it a film that has clear strengths, and clear similarities with Burton movies like Edward Scissorhands and Corpse Bride - which is helped by its art style, that also leans into the gothic side of things.
Monster House, as the name teases, is a movie about a house that's rumored to be haunted, and the protagonists who discover this is indeed true when the building in question comes alive and tries to gain some new human meals. With that said, there's much more to this than at first meets the eye, and just about every character comes away from Monster House by the story's end with a fair amount of character growth, which really works, and makes the film more entertaining than a simple story of a creepy possessed house.
A quintessential Gothic horror, Crimson Peak is set in a truly Gothic Cumberland mansion, wherein the film gets its name. Protagonist Edith Cushing finds herself dealing with increasingly tense mysteries within her time in the mansion while living with her husband Thomas and his sister Lucille, wherein the ghosts and supernatural experiences she's having are arguably the least of her problems.
Crimson Peak luxuriates in the questions its story leaves you with, making its plot twists particularly potent, and particularly Gothic in the dramatic but engaging way they explore matters of love, loss, and, of course, ghosts, giving the movie shades of Burton films like Sweeney Todd, Corpse Bride, and Sleepy Hollow throughout.
Hansel and Gretel has for decades upon decades been effectively one of the first horror stories children have heard in their lives, being one of the bleaker fairytales today even after several revisions from its darker roots. Gretel and Hansel embraces these darker roots, making the movie feel akin to other darker classic story reimaginings like Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow.
Fittingly given the flipped names of the movie's title, Gretel and Hansel focuses far more on Gretel, and her own connection to the world of the supernatural, as well as how it's tempered by her love for her brother, making her a decidedly fascinating Gothic hero who you root for even as you also worry about what fate she and her sibling will experience by the time the film is done.
A 1980s reimagining of the classic Little Red Riding Hood tale, Company of Wolves is another film that has parallels with Sleepy Hollow, and a similar atmosphere to Corpse Bride.
Rather than simply retelling the Little Red Riding story that many grew up with, Company of Wolves consists of several interlocking tales being told by differing characters to others throughout the main narrative, creating an intertwined tapestry for its overarching story, which makes it all the more interesting. Symbolic and full of surprises, Company of Wolves is easy to underestimate narrative wise, but carries a dreamlike feeling that works to its benefit overall.
Woman in Black is in many ways the ultimate modern Gothic horror movie, thanks to its 2012 release date being newer than many other more classical feeling Gothic horrors. Its story only further solidifies this, with Daniel Radcliffe's protagonist Arthur Kipps being sent to the spooky and isolated Eel Marsh House to retrieve any documents left by the previous owner.
Instead, Arthur finds himself dealing with a decidedly haunted seeming building, and a small village wherein the townspeople are growing increasingly irate with his presence, leading him to an ever-tenser series of events that quickly spiral out of control.
Woman in Black wears its heritage very much on its sleeve, which naturally includes famous gothic predecessors like many of Tim Burton's biggest hits, especially in the way it builds tension and makes you root for and sympathize with its protagonist.
Wendell & Wild is a modern film that is made to suit fans of films like Corpse Bride and Beetlejuice, both with its engaging and oftentimes stunning stop-motion animation and style, and also because of its decidedly gothic-leaning visuals and story.
Wendell & Wild focuses around teen protagonist Katherine Elliot, and the odd dynamic that forms between her and the titular demons Wendell and Wild, who recruit Kat to help them with their schemes after promising to return the orphan's parents to her if she works with them.
Grim and spooky yet lively in its supernatural elements, Wendell & Wild matches up well with the usual setup and tone of many of Burton's most beloved movies, making it a natural fit for fans of his catalog who want to experience other films that have similar elements and atmospheres.
While The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is in many ways quite different to the lion's share of Tim Burton's movie roster, it's a particularly fascinating gothic-feeling horror film to watch, because it's often attributed as influencing much of the distinctive style and visual sensibilities that audiences expect from Burton's filmography.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari's dark and yet surrealist world and settings set it apart from many other films while also fitting its story, which centers on Dr. Caligari, and his mysterious sideshow attraction. This unfolds into a complex narrative wherein the dreamlike landscape reflects much of the plot symbolically, while also being a key cornerstone in the development of expressionist and wonderfully weird films.
Though less of a horror than its peers, the macabre tone and world of the Addams family certainly earns their live-action movie a place as being horror-adjacent at worst, much in the same vein that many of the more family-friendly animated horrors on this list still count even though they tone down the terrors of their story to a series of entertaining supernatural entities and moments.
The Addams Family fully embraces being a gothic story, with the Addams family home being clearly styled on the kind of classical Gothic architecture that many horror movie monsters make their lairs. This works as a solid visual representation of the way in which the family embraces and adores everything that's ghoulish and dark. It also equals out into a constant slew of visual gags, since the Addams family are depicted as ultimately kind and caring towards one another by and large, despite their rooms being festooned with grim trinkets that suggest this wouldn't be in their nature.
The Addams Family is decidedly close to Beetlejuice in nature as a result of this setup. Much of its comedy comes from more conventional folks and their reactions to the household's love of all things macabre, and the contrast between the Addams Family's sinister-seeming interests, and their otherwise often wholesome perspectives on life and family.
MirrorMask has some of the most surreal moments and visuals movie-wise of the early 2000s - and that's saying quite a lot, given this era didn't hold back most of the time when it came to delivering unique and surrealist stories and scenes.
Within the film, protagonist Helena's already unusual life as a child that's part of a family circus grows even more unusual when she finds herself in a fantasy land of masks and monsters, searching after the titular magical MirrorMask itself. The story's dreamlike qualities and unique fantasy world give it much in the way of appeal - and ties to other darker fantastical worlds like those we see in Beetlejuice and Corpse Bride - even if MirrorMask has been criticized for having a weaker story than these peers.
Of course, when it comes to gothic-leaning horror that keeps a lively atmosphere and visual style while also providing plenty of worldbuilding, there are few films that do it better than Coraline. At once, Coraline is able to be a relatively family-friendly offering with cute mice in uniforms and a whimsical talking cat, and a genuinely unsettling horror story with scenes and settings that can contend with plenty of non-family-friendly horror films, proving a delicately balanced story can do both well.
This is in no small part because the setting of Coraline is custom-crafted to play on universal fears, with our hero Coraline finding a door in her house that leads to an initially idyllic-seeming world, which hides dark secrets that risk confining the protagonist to a fate worse than death. The animation of Coraline also balances its gothic sensibilities with a more colorful palate throughout the film, making it truly perfect for those looking for lively gothic horrors that work in the same way Tim Burton's main movie catalog does.
