Lewis Carroll ends Alice Through the Looking Glass , the second of his two Alice books, with a poem. It eulogises the day in 1862 when he told the story of Alice in Wonderland to a group of children during a boating trip. The group included Alice Liddell, the inspiration for the Alice. Carroll writes: 'still she haunts me, phantomwise; Alice moving under skies; Never seen by waking eyes.'

The poem is a lament for the passing of carefree youth but, like the story itself, is also shot through with darkness. This atmosphere echoes the cinematic vision which director Tim Burton pursues in his work. Burton's latest film is a loose adaptation of Alice in Wonderland , in which he marries his distinctive visual style and characterisation with the recognisable characters and settings of the story. The result is a typically dark and capricious Wonderland, a place of gothic marvel, monsters and unpredictable surroundings.

Burton's idiosyncratic style doesn't seem deliberately populist, but his films earn millions ( Charlie and the Chocolate Factory grossed over $200 million in the US alone), and he commands increasingly lavish budgets (reportedly $150 million to make Charlie and the Chocolate Factory , and $250 million for Alice in Wonderland ). And Burton has always been part of the mainstream. His first film work was as an animator for Disney, where he never managed the cute animals but was given opportunities to develop his own work instead. Disney funded his first three professional short films while he was working there (although it was loathe to release any of them). This led to television work and his first feature, Pee-wee's Big Adventure , in 1985. 1988's Beetle Juice established Burton firmly as a bankable director, although he says he never considered directing as a career, and really just fell into it.

So where's the appeal? Why do we flock to Burton's movies? He has a regular cast of stars: Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter (to whom he is married) most recently, and Winona Ryder and Michael Keaton in earlier films. But mostly he disguises them under make up or special effects, dressing Bonham-Carter as a monkey in Planet of the Apes , a witch in Big Fish and a monarch with an alarmingly outsized head in Alice in Wonderland. Burton's films are also great spectaculars, masterpieces of costume, set design and special effects. Alice in Wonderland is shot in 3D and consists almost entirely of computer generated effects. But other directors offer spectacle and stars and do not attract Burton's following.

So what keeps us coming back to the gothic fairytales that Burton spins out of plasticine and CGI? Well, to some extent that's what it is. Burton's films are childhood stories. They are magical fairytales familiar to all of us, or tales filtered from the influences of Burton's own childhood, spent watching 60s sci fi and schlocky horror in his suburban family home in Burbank, California. Alice in Wonderland falls into the former category. Into the latter falls Burton's re-imagining of sci-fi B movies, Mars Attacks! , in which ineffectual 90s governments and vapid trash culture do battle with a particularly vindictive race of swollen-headed aliens (with an equally vapid and trashy culture). He has directed film versions of Batman (Batman and Batman Returns ) and Planet of the Apes and a biopic about the 60s director of legendarily awful movies, Ed Wood.

More often, Burton combines the two sources of influence. Sleepy Hollow takes a well-known (in the US) folk tale and gives it the trappings of Hammer horror: misty woodland lanes, villagers with something to hide. And many of his films have the feel of fairytale, of a story dimly recalled, despite being new screenplays. Edward Scissorhands is the story of an innocent among people who misunderstand him and ultimately drive him out. But it is also a tribute to the horror films of Burton's hero, Vincent Price, who cameos as Edward's inventor.

Burton's films may draw on many sources, but they are never po-faced in their references. They have a dark and affectionate humour which is also one of the draws in his work. Sleepy Hollow's Ichabod Crane (Depp) wrestles with a variety of incomprehensibly and hilariously complicated machines. In Batman Returns , Selina Kyle (Michelle Pfeiffer) rampages through her apartment as she transforms into Catwoman. The scene ends with a shot through her window from outside, the cutesy neon sign she has on the wall smashed from 'Hello there' to 'Hell here'. In contrast, Big Fish is a lacklustre outing, a sickly soup of recalled youth with little of the ascerbic wit of Burton's other films to spice it up. It remains one of Burton's less satisfying works.

Edward Scissorhands combines this dark humour with the heart-breaking pathos of Edward's loneliness and desire for human contact. As Edward (Depp) attempts to manipulate a single pea to his mouth with his great shears of hands during his first dinner with the family who take him in we are torn between the humour of the slapstick and sympathy for his condition. The film offsets pastel-hued suburban banality, the kind of surroundings in which Burton grew up, with the looming horror fairytale castle perched at the end of the cul-de-sac. This feels like Burton's most personal film. It reflects the enormous influence of television and cinema in his childhood through the castle and the ‘monster', and the stifling suburban environment of his childhood. Burton clearly imbues Edward with his own experiences as an outsider in his childhood neighbourhood and even in his family (he went to live with his grandmother in his early teens). It is deeply affecting to watch and engages the viewer in a way which his subsequent work manages only sporadically.

Burton has said that he is profoundly influenced by his childhood experiences, and that much of his work tries to recapture them. But he has also vociferously rejected the label of 'childlike' that many critics have used to describe him. He has condemned what he views as society's desire to homogenise individuals, to strip them of their particular talents or qualities in order to better fit them into an acceptable framework. His films often put forward social critique, and typically have an outsider as a hero.

Often this critique centres on middle class families and suburban small-mindedness. Again, Edward Scissorhands proves the best example of this . The inhabitants of the cul-de-sac initially adore Edward for his skills at hairdressing and topiary, but then begin to turn on him and ultimately drive him out. He is at best a delightful curiosity and at worst a dangerous monster. This community of pettiness enlarges a theme of Beetle Juice – the obnoxious Deetz parents ignore their introverted, goth daughter, Lydia (Ryder) and occupy themselves instead with massive refurbishment of their newly acquired house in the worst possible taste.

With Mars Attacks! , the field of critique is widened to include the weak government. Jack Nicholson's speech as President Dale is one of the funniest moments of the film: 'why can't we all just... get along?' and, again, his wife is obsessed with redecorating in a style which will obliterate the traces of past inhabitants. The US is shown as a culture of disposable capitalism run riot – a Vegas developer insists on continuing with his overblown hotel despite the alien invasion. It is also spiritually bankrupt – the developer's idiotic wife mashes together symbols from major religions with new age gimmickry.

Burton's more recent films have toned down this aspect, which is a loss, but still retain a critique of the family. Most obvious is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory , which serves as a cautionary tale to pushy parents and spoilt brats everywhere – the obedient will inherit the sweets. But Corpse Bride and Alice in Wonderland also feature overbearing parents enforcing the social order via arranged marriages which are for the good of the family rather than the emotional wellbeing of the individuals involved.

Burton's films have such a distinctive artistic and thematic vision that it proves difficult to trace much development in his career. Yes, he has moved from stop-motion in Pee-wee's Big Adventure and Beetle Juice to CGI in Sweeney Todd and Alice in Wonderland. But the territory he explores remains the same – a personal re-living and revisiting of childhood influences and social alienation, all with his trademark gothic spectacle and humour. If someone had given him the effects and budget of Alice in Wonderland when he was directing Batman , one feels it would not have come out that different to the version released this month.

In most cases it is reductive to read a director's psychology into his work. But Tim Burton explicitly attributes his creative decisions to his childhood experiences. Is his lack of development the sign of a stagnating talent gradually losing its inspiration? Or is it a commitment in itself? Burton's films remain rich to the point of sensory overload, and Alice in Wonderland promises to be an international hit. For an accidental director that's not bad.