The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993, PG)

This claymation feature is about Jack Skellington (who is a skeleton), the Pumpkin King and the figurehead of Halloween Town.  In this story there is a realm for the mascots if you will of each of several major holidays.  Jack is getting tired of Halloween, and he finds some magic trees through which one can travel to the other holiday towns and stumbles into Christmas Town.  The gist of the story is that Jack thinks Christmas looks pretty cool and he wants to give it a try.  I wanted to love this movie more than I did, because of its huge cult following, but it was still fun.  The animation was quite good: not quite as seamless as a Wallace And Grommit film, but then again it was far more visually complex.  I like to see actual stop-motion claymation features... it just feels like the film has more heart when they have to get their hands dirty (literally) to make it.  I also enjoy a computer animated feature from time to time, but the fact of the CG is not a selling point for me.  I thought it was really cool that the creatures in Halloween Town were both spooky and cute at the same time, so the visual style was my favorite part of the movie.  The film was also quite well-saturated with musical numbers and some dancing.


Tim Burton wrote and produced this movie and this was one of the first films in which he really got to cut loose with his individual style (his other early stylistic works include Beetlejuice which he directed and Edward Scissorhands which he wrote, directed and produced).  The musical score was by Danny Elfman, who is probably most famous for the music to Batman Returns and also Batman the animated series, but whose numerous musical credits also include most of Burton's films as well as Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy.  Elfman also voiced a couple of the characters in this film including Jack's singing voice (but not his speaking voice).  Another actor in this film whose name you may recognize is Paul Reubens (Pee Wee Herman).

The aspect of this film that I found most lacking was the depth of plot.  Most of the characters were not very complex, simply iconic.  This lends to my impression that (despite the decidedly fear-tinged atmosphere) this is a children's movie.  It's full of singing and dancing, the plot isn't overly complex (Shrek and the Lion King do a great job of being easily accessible to children but also provide the complexity and depth of plot for an adult audience, but Nightmare can't quite claim that), the characters are mostly short and stubby but some are tall and gangly (these two are also quite friendly to offset being of the most frightening stature, and one of them is the protagonist).  There is one album by Voltaire (the modern-era gothic humorist, not the 18th century philosopher) entitled "Spooky Songs For Creepy Kids", and I'd say that pretty much sums up the target audience of this film: kids who kind of like spookier stuff.  Very small children might be too frightened of the characters, but if they have not yet been raised to be afraid of vampires/etc and if the parents (watching it with the kids, obviously) are visibly non-frightened and enjoying it then maybe the kid would get a kick out of it too.  I think it goes without saying that if you liked The Corpse Bride, then you'll like this movie.  If you don't like shallow children's movies then don't bother, but if you get into visually stylistic movies then you should really like this.  Basically, Tim Burton fans who like musicals too.