Cross-media picks for Tim Burton fans — films, series, games and books in the same vein.
These picks gather around a shared sensibility: the outsider who doesn't quite fit, the macabre played with a wink, and a visual imagination that finds beauty in the strange and the dark. From a boy who resurrects his dog in Frankenweenie to a preteen goth exploring the afterlife in Beetlejuice, the thread is creatures and characters who are lonely, odd, and strangely loveable — stories where the uncanny feels warmer than the ordinary world.
Film
Frankenweenie
A boy's love for his pet drives him to monstrous lengths — quirky, tender horror with a bolt-necked heart.
Film
Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker
Obsessive love turns lethal in this unsettling thriller about family ties that refuse to let go.
Film
Bats
Genetically mutated bats escape — creature-feature fun with a rampaging-wildlife threat at its core.
Film
The World, the Flesh and the Devil
A lone survivor wanders an empty New York after nuclear holocaust — haunting, atmospheric, and melancholy.
Film
Vincent
A small boy loses himself in macabre daydreams, longing to be something beautifully strange.
Film
Young Frankenstein
A comic riff on classic monster science that treats Frankenstein's legacy with irreverent, affectionate wit.
Film
Saturday the 14th
A cursed book unleashes household monsters — playful family horror where the weird invades suburban life.
Film
Little Monsters
A boy befriends the monster under his bed and discovers a whole hidden world of mischievous creatures.
Series
Beetlejuice
Lydia Deetz and her undead friend explore a wacky afterlife realm full of ghosts, ghouls, and weird wonder.
Series
Frankenstein's Love
An immortal monster yearns for human connection, listening to the outside world he can never quite join.
Series
Batman: The Animated Series
A gothic Gotham brought to brooding life — shadows, style, and a masked outsider avenging family tragedy.
Series
It
A shape-shifting evil that preys on outcasts and misfits — childhood fear made monstrously, viscerally real.
Series
Terror in Resonance
Cryptic young terrorists and a baffled world — a dark, stylised thriller steeped in alienation and mystery.
Series
The Munsters
A family of friendly monsters baffled by the normal world — warm, gentle, and delightfully odd.
Series
Love, Death & Robots
Wicked surprises and dark comedy in short animated bursts — each story a different shade of beautiful strange.
Series
The Batman
A young, solitary Batman defined by shadows and style against a gallery of vividly strange villains.
Game
Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge
Step into Jack Skellington's gothic carnival world and battle Oogie Boogie across spooky, stylised levels.
Game
Batman Returns (Amiga, Atari)
Gotham in winter, the Penguin plotting mayhem below — a dark, theatrical villain at the centre of it all.
Game
Hook (1992)
Face the most infamous pirate of all in a swashbuckling action game built on childhood imagination and dread.
Game
Alfred Hitchcock – Vertigo
A psychological mystery where memory and reality blur — unsettling, slow-burn, and richly disorienting.
Game
Phantasmagoria 2: A Puzzle of Flesh
A man leaving a mental hospital tries for normality — then dread and flesh-horror creep relentlessly back in.
Game
Content Warning
Film your friends doing terrifying things — a comic, cooperative creature-feature drenched in playful dread.
Game
Sam & Max Hit the Road
A wisecracking dog and a hyperkinetic rabbit chase carnival carnage — absurdist, darkly comic adventure.
Game
Disney Alice in Wonderland
Explore a vividly strange Wonderland and guide Alice through a world of impossible, whimsical dangers.
Book
Say Cheese - and Die Screaming!
A girl attacked by a giant spider suspects HorrorLand hides something sinister beneath the fun.
Book
Total Recall
A man's implanted memories unravel into covert missions — paranoid sci-fi dread soaked in identity crisis.
Book
It [1/2]
Stephen King's sprawling tale of seven outcast kids and the ancient shape-shifting evil that hunts them.
Book
Hurrah for the Circus!
A boy joins a travelling circus of magnificent tigers — wild, adventurous, and delightfully outside the ordinary.
Book
The death of sweet mister
A lonely boy tangled in a brutal, dysfunctional household — dark, raw, and charged with emotional menace.
Book
It came from beneath the playground
Kid detectives use doodling and wit to solve a mole-theft mystery — playfully strange and wryly funny.
Book
Beast
An enormous octopus terrorises the waters near Bermuda — creature-feature menace on a grand, primal scale.
Book
Visionary film
A critical map of visionary cinema — essential context for anyone drawn to the strange and the poetic on screen.
Start with the animated series Beetlejuice, which follows Lydia Deetz through a ghoulish afterlife, or Batman: The Animated Series for gothic atmosphere and stylish shadows. Love, Death & Robots offers dark comedy and wicked surprises in short animated bursts.
Stephen King's It captures the same blend of childhood outsider anxiety and creature horror, while Say Cheese — and Die Screaming! brings a lighter, spookier edge aimed at younger readers. Visionary Film is a deep dive into experimental and avant-garde cinema.
The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge drops you straight into Jack Skellington's gothic carnival world. Alfred Hitchcock — Vertigo offers the psychological disorientation of a mind unravelling, and Sam & Max Hit the Road serves up absurdist dark comedy with real bite.