What do you get when you cross the dark Nightmare animation of Tim Burton, with Monsters Inc., with a sprinkling of Aardman’s down to earth humour?

You get the wonderfully entertaining Frankensteinian Stitch Head.

Within the village of Grubber Nubbin (pop.665), there is a mountain with Castle Grotteskew atop of it.

It’s the home of a mad scientist (Rob Brydon), who is obsessed with making monsters, with one of his first being Stitch Head (Asa Butterfield), who has become his assistant.

Stitch Head has become jaded over the years, and feels invisible whenever he’s around his boss. His curiosity gets the better of him when a travelling freak show comes to town. He’s persuaded by its ringleader, Fulbert Freakfinder (Seth Usdenov), to not only join the show, but be the main attraction, promising him that the locals will love him for scaring them.

And it’s just as he described, for a while, and then Stitch Head realises that the travelling show isn’t all it seems, and that his monster friends, such as Creature (Joel Fry), may have to come to his rescue.

It’s been a while since Brit Steve Hudson got behind a camera, directing five episodes of the BBC drama Cranford in 2007. This is also his first stab at directing an animated film, which, much like the material, is a little on the hodgepodge side.

It has a remarkable likeness to Burton’s stop-motion animation technique, but instead of doing the painstaking work, is created by CGI technology. And it’s a satisfactory shortcut for what it is; it has all the aesthetic look of the technique without the elegant craft.

And in keeping with the overall Frankenstein nature of the film, it was a co-production between Germany, Luxembourg, India, and the UK.

Thankfully a strong British vocal cast hold things together, with Fry and Brydon joined by the likes of Rasmus Hardiker, Ryan Sampson, Alison Steadman, Fern Brady and Jamali Maddix, who give it some much needed comedic cohesiveness.

And although it’s based on the 2011 graphic novel by Guy Bass, it wears its obvious influences on its held-together-by-a-thread sleeve, making it feel far from original.

Still, it’s a loving homage, with the CGI-created stop motion technique still visually striking, and approachable humour, making it a charming film you could easily find you and your family easily attached to.