Director: Henry Selick
Genre: Animation, Family, Fantasy, Musical
Rating: A
It's almost Halloween, which means that it's officially the time to question whether The Nightmare Before Christmas qualifies as a Halloween or Christmas movie. I personally like to think both.
Jack Skellington (Sarandon, singing voice by Elfman) is the Pumpkin King of Halloween town, but as of late his heart hasn't been in the scarring people business - he wants something more. This something more is found after Jack discovers the portal to Christmas Town and decides that this year Halloween Town will do Christmas. With the help of the town he prepares for Christmas, even going so far as to have Lock (Paul Reubens), Shock (O'Hara), and Barrel (Elfman), kidnap 'Sandy Claws' so that Jack can replace him - although unbenknownst to Jack, the trio deliver Sandy to town bogeyman Oogie Boogie (Page). Watching it all with apprehension is rag-doll and love interest Sally (O'Hara), who is certain that Jack's Christmas is not going to be a success.
It's no surprise that the best part about this movie is the music. The songs are simplistic, catchy, and well sung. Honestly, in my opinion one of the best parts about most Tim Burton films is the Danny Elfman soundtrack, and Nightmare really shines as one of his best. Some of the songs aren't as good, but most of the music is just iconic of the stylings of this film. It's a perfect blending of the styles of Burton and Elfman - sadly, for actual director Henry Selick he's kind of left out of the limelight a bit here by the two bigger names.
The next thing that makes this movie great is the world that Burton and Selick have created. It's beautifully crafted stop motion animation, meaning that everything about it has actually been crafted. The attention to details and what not isn't just some computer program - I realize that there's more to computer animation than just the computer doing it, but it has a different feel to it. Somehow, the knowledge that the creations in Nightmare are all actually crafted things makes it feel more real. You might not be able to have as much going on in the background when you're using stop motion, but what happens in the foreground just has this extra little charm to it - and really, Nightmare doesn't lose all that much of the background either. The fact that they had about 400 heads for Jack alone says something about the time and effort that went into this movie.
Rounding out the greatness is the fact that it's a movie that does, or at least can, appeal to people of all ages. It's animated and intended to appeal to a younger audience, but it also works really well as a movie for adults. I actually hated this movie as a kid because I found it to be too scary, but as I got older and it began to reemerge a bit I really got into it. It's fun, it's cute, it's dark, but it's also light at times. It's probably the best thing that's come out of Tim Burton, or at least pretty close. Definitely the best thing Henry Selick's directed.
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