SummaryCan Christmas be saved? Bored with the same old scare-and-scream routine, Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town, longs to spread the joy of Christmas. But his merry mission puts Santa in jeopardy and creates a nightmare for good little boys and girls everywhere. [Walt Disney]
SummaryCan Christmas be saved? Bored with the same old scare-and-scream routine, Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town, longs to spread the joy of Christmas. But his merry mission puts Santa in jeopardy and creates a nightmare for good little boys and girls everywhere. [Walt Disney]
A masterpiece. A work of grand visual wit, clever songs, funny gags and genuine pathos, it is perhaps the greatest stop-motion animated film ever, a painstaking style of model animation that computers have all but completely done away with.
The Nightmare Before Christmas is the black diamond of family films, brilliantly conceived, touchingly pure of heart, much more endearing than scary. [22 Oct 1993, p.55]
Burton seems to waver between rooting for the scary guys and the cuddly ones, and his indecision makes it hard for us to respond on an emotional level. The result, though refreshingly different from mainstream animated fare, is ultimately more trick than treat.
In the hands of some Eastern European masters, stop-motion animation has created some fine adult animated films, like Jan Svankmajer's spooky version of "Alice in Wonderland." But The Nightmare Before Christmas is basically a charmless and muddled tale that aims at a target somewhere in the vast gulf between Franz Kafka and Walt Disney and hits nothing. [22 Oct 1993, p.3E]
I admit it, I really like Tim Burton. I know his films are very oddball, but he has a wide imagination and his films are visually amazing. And I like a vast majority of his films, Edward Scissorhands being my personal favourite, and I love Batman and Batman Returns too. Henry Sellick is also promising, from the likes of James and the Giant Peach and Coraline. The Nightmare Before Christmas is a brilliant film. Is it an animated classic. Yes I think it is! It is wonderfully weird yet lots of fun as well. Visually and technically, the film looks absolutely amazing, with wonderful Gothic backgrounds and detailed colouring. Skellington silhouetted against the moonlight is quite possibly the film's most haunting image. The story is great, about Jack Skellington discovering ChristmasTown but doesn't understand the concept so he kidnaps Santa Claus. And the characters are endearing and weird, ranging from jazz playing zombies, Four-tenor like vampires to a wolf man. Then we have the title characters, Jack Skellington is a wonderful protagonist, really interesting to say the least. And Sally for an inventor's creation is very beautiful. The songs from Danny Elfman(the fact that he didn't get an award for his score for Edward Scissorhands is the biggest music snubs ever) are great fun, haunting, funny, clever and intelligent. The voice acting is top notch, Chris Sarandon does a great job as the speaking voice of Skellington, and Danny Elfman himself provides the singing voice superbly. Catherine O'Hara is sweet and innocent, and Ken Page(the voice of King Gator in All Dogs Go To Heaven) is a hoot as Oogie Boogie. All in all, weird, but visually stunning, funny and intelligent animated movie. A definite classic! 10/10 Bethany Cox
not my thing but even then I still think it was an alright movie. just some of it didn't make sense to me. And fore some reason, fat chicks with black hair like to get tattoos of jack.
THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS was an interesting idea for a family/horror/musical blend, but especially for a Tim Burton film, it wasn't really achieved all that well. Sure, this was a cute one, and it was definitely enjoyable; it just, looking at it from a critical perspective, was not the best movie.