The Nightmare Before Christmas ««««
PG, 76m. 1993
Cast & Credits: Featuring the voices of Danny Elfman, Chris Sarandon, Catherine O’Hara, William Hickey, Glenn Shadix, Paul Reubens, Ken Page and Ed Ivory. Screenplay by Caroline Thompson based on a story and characters by Tim Burton. Directed by Henry Selick.
A kid wakes up to find a tall stick-looking figure with the head of a skeleton and phony white beard setting nicely wrapped presents all around the tree Christmas morning.
The little tyke is shocked at first by the sight of this ghastly image. You can understand the stunned look on his face. Chances are his parents told him Santa Claus is a jolly fat guy in a red suit who says “Ho, Ho, Ho!” The creature standing in his living room is completely the opposite.
The thin man delightfully hands the child a present then goes up the chimney. His parents awaken a few minutes later as the boy eagerly opens his gift.
"What did Santa bring you?" the mother asks.
The boy takes out a severed head.
What kind of movie is this you might ask? Based on what you’ve just read, if you are a concerned parent, you probably won’t want to take your kids to see the dark, animated comic Halloween tale, The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Believe it or not, the picture is as much for 9 and 10-year-old kids as it is for adults. It’s good clean fun. It’s not like The Exorcist (1973) or any R-rated movie featuring a psychotic madslasher where you walk out, disturbed by what you just saw on the screen. This is like Disney’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1958) where the sight of an animated headless horseman isn’t as frightening as it looks or sounds.
The images are no more scary than what kids have probably already conceived in their minds. Somewhere out among a forest of dying trees, each revealing a different doorway into another holiday world, is a town called Halloween where an orange-smiling pumpkin takes the place of the sun during the day. At night, groups of hanging skeletons sing a tribute to “Ogie Boogie,” a dancing green-eyed goblin who looks like an obese, old brown potato sack.
We meet a mischievous trio of trick-or-treaters named Lock, Shock and Barrel who act on orders from Halloweentown’s “Pumpkin King” known as Jack Skellington to kidnap Santa Claus.
Jack's grown weary doing the same thing every year who is always being relied upon to think up new ways to make the next Halloween even scarier. Then one night, his spirits are rejuvenated when he accidentally wanders into Christmas Land. Marveled at the sights of white snow, colored lights and how happy everyone is, Jack takes over Santa's job bringing smiles to kid's faces.
He's got St. Nick's routine down using a ghostly dog with a red nose that lights up in place of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. When a child awakens to find a toy snake devouring his Christmas tree, however, the reaction is not the same as one might get when Santa brings them that special toy he'd been asking his parents all year for.
The Nightmare Before Christmas is almost as long as a Disney movie; 76 minutes, but a majority of the dialogue is set to musical lyrics, some of which is sung by composer Danny Elfman (Batman - 1989). What's revelatory about it is there is not a bad song throughout the entire picture as opposed to most of Disney's animated features where some lyrics work, others don't. You could buy the soundtrack, play it in your car or CD player and still be able to picture the action going on without the need of a TV or the big screen.
The animation is not like 1995's Toy Story where the toys all move with the help of computers. According to the film's press release, the characters in The Nightmare Before Christmas all move through a process called stop motion animation where the objects are shot as a group of still images. The puppets are moved slightly in between frames to the point that they take on a life of their own.
Some of the characters look as though they were cleverly put together using parts from either toys or things found in a drawer. The two-headed face of the town's mayor, for example, looks like a spinning top painted upside down.
Jack's head, on the other hand, looks like a beat-up white golf ball where someone painted large black dots for eyes and a nose and a series of lines for a mouth and teeth.
Being shocked and surprised and not grossed out by the sight of blood and guts is what Halloween is all about. That's the point The Nightmare Before Christmas makes. If you don't believe me, perhaps all those talking corpses, ghosts, ghouls, goblins, vampires and witches from Halloweentown will set you straight. They scare people for a living but always remember, they're not doing it to be mean. That's just the way they do things in their town called Halloween.
©11/1/00
PG, 76m. 1993
Cast & Credits: Featuring the voices of Danny Elfman, Chris Sarandon, Catherine O’Hara, William Hickey, Glenn Shadix, Paul Reubens, Ken Page and Ed Ivory. Screenplay by Caroline Thompson based on a story and characters by Tim Burton. Directed by Henry Selick.
The little tyke is shocked at first by the sight of this ghastly image. You can understand the stunned look on his face. Chances are his parents told him Santa Claus is a jolly fat guy in a red suit who says “Ho, Ho, Ho!” The creature standing in his living room is completely the opposite.
The thin man delightfully hands the child a present then goes up the chimney. His parents awaken a few minutes later as the boy eagerly opens his gift.
"What did Santa bring you?" the mother asks.
The boy takes out a severed head.
What kind of movie is this you might ask? Based on what you’ve just read, if you are a concerned parent, you probably won’t want to take your kids to see the dark, animated comic Halloween tale, The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Believe it or not, the picture is as much for 9 and 10-year-old kids as it is for adults. It’s good clean fun. It’s not like The Exorcist (1973) or any R-rated movie featuring a psychotic madslasher where you walk out, disturbed by what you just saw on the screen. This is like Disney’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1958) where the sight of an animated headless horseman isn’t as frightening as it looks or sounds.
The images are no more scary than what kids have probably already conceived in their minds. Somewhere out among a forest of dying trees, each revealing a different doorway into another holiday world, is a town called Halloween where an orange-smiling pumpkin takes the place of the sun during the day. At night, groups of hanging skeletons sing a tribute to “Ogie Boogie,” a dancing green-eyed goblin who looks like an obese, old brown potato sack.
We meet a mischievous trio of trick-or-treaters named Lock, Shock and Barrel who act on orders from Halloweentown’s “Pumpkin King” known as Jack Skellington to kidnap Santa Claus.
Jack's grown weary doing the same thing every year who is always being relied upon to think up new ways to make the next Halloween even scarier. Then one night, his spirits are rejuvenated when he accidentally wanders into Christmas Land. Marveled at the sights of white snow, colored lights and how happy everyone is, Jack takes over Santa's job bringing smiles to kid's faces.
He's got St. Nick's routine down using a ghostly dog with a red nose that lights up in place of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. When a child awakens to find a toy snake devouring his Christmas tree, however, the reaction is not the same as one might get when Santa brings them that special toy he'd been asking his parents all year for.
The Nightmare Before Christmas is almost as long as a Disney movie; 76 minutes, but a majority of the dialogue is set to musical lyrics, some of which is sung by composer Danny Elfman (Batman - 1989). What's revelatory about it is there is not a bad song throughout the entire picture as opposed to most of Disney's animated features where some lyrics work, others don't. You could buy the soundtrack, play it in your car or CD player and still be able to picture the action going on without the need of a TV or the big screen.
The animation is not like 1995's Toy Story where the toys all move with the help of computers. According to the film's press release, the characters in The Nightmare Before Christmas all move through a process called stop motion animation where the objects are shot as a group of still images. The puppets are moved slightly in between frames to the point that they take on a life of their own.
Some of the characters look as though they were cleverly put together using parts from either toys or things found in a drawer. The two-headed face of the town's mayor, for example, looks like a spinning top painted upside down.
Jack's head, on the other hand, looks like a beat-up white golf ball where someone painted large black dots for eyes and a nose and a series of lines for a mouth and teeth.
Being shocked and surprised and not grossed out by the sight of blood and guts is what Halloween is all about. That's the point The Nightmare Before Christmas makes. If you don't believe me, perhaps all those talking corpses, ghosts, ghouls, goblins, vampires and witches from Halloweentown will set you straight. They scare people for a living but always remember, they're not doing it to be mean. That's just the way they do things in their town called Halloween.
©11/1/00
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