The Nightmare Before Christmas

Plot

Jack Skellington is the King of Halloween Town, who after the most recent Halloween gets down in the dumps wanting something more fulfilling. He finds by chance the door to Christmas Town, and marvels at their way of life, and wants it for himself.

Direction

In an almost flawless Stop Motion animation, it is typical Tim Burton‘esque’ style (although directed by Henry Selick and produced by Burton) – it is both magically gothic in the dark and eerie Halloween town with as many scary and frightening characters that you can think of.

The contrast to the colourful and wonderful world of Christmas town is as different as can be.

There is such attention to detail in some of the scenes such as one moment where characters’ pupils dilate.

Cast/Characters

The main characters are Jack Skellington, voiced Chris Sarandon and Sally voiced by the legendary Catherine O’Hara.

Other voice cast include the late William Hickey, Glenn Shadix and Paul Reubens and the king of music Danny Elfman himself plays the singing voice of Jack Skellington.  

Screenplay/Setting/Themes

Both Halloweentown and Christmastown are chalk and cheese in their similarities – and there is almost nonstop music playing throughout.

At a brief 76m, this was probably the right run time.

Some of the monsters are a little creepy – with Jack Skellington being himself a skeleton… despite its G rating, still might give the little ones a fright.

Score/Soundtrack

As stated earlier, an almost non stop musical with such fun songs like ‘Whats This’ ‘Sandy Claws’ and many more.

Elman’s gothic score is present all the way through as well.

Overall

Embarrassingly I don’t remember watching this before today’s review watch. I liked this, but didn’t love it. Perhaps this is because I am a man in my 40s who is not really that into musicals. I think it’s a bit of a product of its time too, and had I actually watched it back in the day it would be more of a classic in my mind. Still with catchy songs, near perfect execution and a fast paced runtime, it still gets a solid pass.

4/5