The Nightmare Before Christmas
Tired of scaring humans every October 31 with the same old bag of tricks, Jack Skellington, the spindly king of Halloween Town, kidnaps Santa Claus and plans to deliver shrunken heads and other ghoulish gifts to children on Christmas morning. But as Christmas approaches, Jack's rag-doll girlfriend, Sally, tries to foil his misguided plans.
- Released: 1993-10-09
- Runtime: 76 minutes
- Genre: Animation, Family, Fantasy
- Stars: Chris Sarandon, Danny Elfman, Catherine O'Hara, Glenn Shadix, Edward Ivory, Paul Reubens, Kerry Katz, Carmen Twillie, Randy Crenshaw, Debi Durst, Glenn Walters, Greg Proops, Susan McBride, Mia Brown, L. Peter Callender, Ann Fraser, Jennifer Levey, Jesse McClurg, Robert Olague, Bobbi Page
- Director: Henry Selick
Comments
- kokkinoskitrinosmple - 13 March 2024
Halloween meets Christmas
The main asset of The Nightmare Before Christmas is that it's visually stunning and it shows imaginative world-building, like pretty much any project that Tim Burton is involved in.
Jack Skellington is a typical Tim Burton character who is in conflict with a world that seems to have no place for him (see Edward Scissorhands, Willy Wonka, Sweeney Todd, Alice, Batman, etc.). However, he is - what an irony - not as cartoonish as some of those and ends up being a relatable figure while the audience watches his attempt at replacing Halloween with Christmas.
The one major problem with this movie is that the songs were rather dull and unfortunately it's hard to ignore it as there's a ton of them, it's essentially a musical. And that hurts the story as well, as it constantly loses momentum.
Also, kids might have a hard time enjoying Burton's dark and creepy aesthetics. - Lejink - 11 December 2023
Christmas Evel
Tim Burton wrote and co-produced this short, musical, stop-animation feature, (it was directed by Henry Slick, but has Burton's fingerprins all over it)) as an antidote to other cuddly seasonal features which are available, cleverly conflating probably his own favourite holiday season Halloween with everybody else's, Christmas.
The story's quite simple and straightforward, Halloween Jack (wasn't that a line in a Bowie song?) Skellington (love that spelling!) organises Halloween for his fellow town residents but has lately become bored in the process. To rejuvenate himself, he decides to borrow a few tricks from neighbouring Christmas Town where he thinks a little mix-and-match of the two holidays might succeed. It does seem a bit like painting a moustache on the Mona Lisa and his adoring girlfriend Sally Finkelstein, who is forever trying to escape the attentions of her creator, Dr Finkelstein, tries to tell him so, but headstrong Jack carries on regardless, his master stroke, or so he thinks, being to kidnap Sandy Claws (his spelling), take his place and dispense much less wholesome toys to all the nice boys and girls. Actually in this day and age, I'm not sure old Jack wasn't onto something considering some of the videogames kids play today.
Anyway, at least in 1993, he gets it wrong, spoiling every youngster's Christmas morning and at the same time jeopardising Santa himself who he's left in the care of the bad old Boogie Man. Who knows though, maybe Sally can literally pull herself together and help Jack to save the day...
For me, the most disappointing feature of the movie was the rather lukewarm soundtrack provided by Danny Elfman. None of the songs stay in the memory although I will concede they do help the story along. I liked two sequences in particular, Jack's disastrous delivery of the kiddies' gifts and the showdown with the Boogie Man. The animation is excellent throughout, recalling for me anyway "The Wizard of Oz", "Yellow Submarine" and even "H. R. Pufnstuf". Perhaps I'd have liked a few more good jokes in the dialogue and a little bit darker treatment in the narrative, but on the whole, I'll take Burton's, let's call it a grey Christmas, over "The Snowman" any old Christmas Day. - amyjo-1111 - 24 October 2023
Beyond nostalgic
I was 10-yrs-old when this masterpiece was released and it left the most wonderful impression on me. I'm 40 now and this film is so embedded in my heart that I literally just started ugly crying when the last scene of Jack and Sally came on. The waves of nostalgia hit me so hard. As a child of the 90s, watching it for the first time, I'd never seen anything like it. It was magical. I'd always been fascinated with stop-motion and I was amazed by how the movie was made out of tangible materials. And on top of everything, I was obsessed with spooky, Halloween, ghostly things my entire childhood. Like, checking out every spooky book in the library, telling my cousins and friends ghost stories every chance I got.... obsessed. So this movie hit the mark for me in every way. I felt like it was made just for me. Tim Burton was a dream come true for a kid like me. The only other movie I'd seen that was comparable at the time was Beetlejuice, and I was in awe of that one too. What else is there to say? Tim Burton is a genius, and the collaboration with Danny Elfman who is also a genius... just out of this world magical. A match made in heaven (or hell in Burton's movies. Hehe) So amazing to hear Elfman's voice. Just beautiful. And Catherine O'Hara gave such an outstanding performance as well. This movie is perfection. 30 years later and, in many ways, it surpasses animation today. Burton payed such close attention to every detail. This film will never be outdated visually. And of course... the storyline has depth and is quite moving. This movie defines the expression "total package". And Jack Skellington is welcome to leave one on my doorstep any day. Now if only Burton would make a part 2... I would probably explode with joy. Oh well. A girl can dream...
