The pain of losing a loved one leaves an indelible mark on the hardest heart.

Frankenweenie is a charming and impeccably crafted stop-motion animation about a lonely boy who cannot bear the loss of his pet dog.

So the ingenious tyke re-animates the deceased pooch with a lightning bolt a la Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, blind to the repercussions of meddling with Mother Nature.

Writer-director Tim Burton has dealt with the pain of grief and solitude before, most powerfully in Edward Scissorhands — another haunting fable about a misfit out of step with his off-kilter surroundings.

Frankenweenie shares the same screen heroine, Winona Ryder, and the spirit of Edward’s creator Vincent Price lives on in the striking, sculpted features of a high school science teacher, whose class demonstration with electricity and frog’s legs sows the seeds of this picture’s macabre plan.

Victor Frankenstein (voiced by Charlie Tahan) is an outcast in the sleepy community of New Holland, where he lives with his parents (Martin Short, Catherine O’Hara).

His only friend is the family’s bull terrier Sparky, who has a crush on Persephone, the pampered black poodle that lives next door with Victor’s classmate Elsa Van Helsing (Ryder).

When tragedy strikes and Sparky is laid to rest in the pet cemetery, Victor is plunged into despair. Then teacher Mr Rzykruski (Martin Landau) plants the seed of an outlandish idea.

“Science is not good or bad, Victor, but it can be used both ways,” counsels Mr Rzykruski.