The Nightmare Before Christmas turns thirty this year, which is hard to believe. I first saw it at a friend’s house back in college, and bless him, he knew he was taking a chance. We had already braved Dark City together, well, I braved it whereas he’d already seen it, and The Nightmare Before Christmas was the natural next step. For me, at least.
I expected wall-to-wall quirk, but I didn’t expect to be enchanted. The Nightmare Before Christmas was adorable while being slightly morbid; there was a sense of wonder while also a lack of cheese and predictability. The hour-plus-change flew by, leaving me wanting more.
For those who might not be familiar with the plot, it’s simply this: Jack Skellington is the king of Halloween Town, and every year he and his fellow ghouls make Fright Night memorable and scary. While Jack is proud of his kingdom and takes delight in Halloween every year, he’s also bored and wonders what else is out there.
By chance Jack stumbles on a strange grove of trees in the forest, with each tree being a portal to certain holidays, and he’s drawn to one door with a Christmas tree on it. Inside, of course, he finds the North Pole, and elves, and Santa. No one’s playing practical jokes. No one’s scared. No one’s lying or stealing. Everyone is happy and warm and cozy, dreaming of sugar plums, drinking hot chocolate, and helping Santa get ready for Christmas Eve.
Jack is at once mystified and enchanted. He not only brings back some Christmas trappings to Halloween Town, but he wants his kingdom to take over Christmas. How would they do that? By kidnapping Santa and doing whatever he does, of course.
Sally, a sweet lady who’s a creation of Dr. Finkelstein and secretly in love with Jack, tries to warn Jack that no good can come from Halloween Town standing in for Santa Claus, but Jack blissfully forges ahead. Of course, it all gets worse before it gets better.
What makes The Nightmare Before Christmas worth checking out, or going back to, as the case may be? Let us count some of the ways…
The cast.
The most well-known cast members were Chris Sarandon, Catherine O’Hara, and Danny Elfman, and the rest were durable character actors. How durable are we talking about? We probably don’t remember their names, but we remember their voices, and the cast of Nightmare struck the right balance between sinister and kooky.
It’s quintessential Tim Burton.
Burton’s known, of course, for putting an unconventional stamp on his movies, and Nightmare came out when he was at or approaching his height. Despite the fact that he didn’t direct the movie but just produced it and wrote the story, Nightmare is probably the first title to come to mind when people think of Burton. That’s definitely not a bad thing.
Danny Elfman’s music (My favorite part).
The Nightmare Before Christmas is almost like a libretto. Not totally because there’s still a lot of spoken dialogue, but it’s very music-heavy, so it flows seamlessly from beginning to end, and Danny Elfman and Tim Burton are a match made in heaven. They’re both quirky in similar ways–we are, after all, talking about the writer of “Dead Man’s Party“–and the strength of their partnership is never more in evidence than in Nightmare. I also love that Elfman was Jack’s singing voice because he brought a lot of zaniness to the vocals and gave it a nice rock star edge.
The great visuals.
While the film brings to mind a Rankin-Bass special, and it is very much a tribute, Nightmare does Rankin-Bass a few better by adding more textures, vista, and lighting effects, not to mention each character has a wealth of facial expressions to choose from. It’s quite the tactile experience, making the experience more immersive than stop-animation might be.
It’s not a typical Christmas movie. It’s not a typical Halloween movie, either.
It’s too macabre to be a Christmas movie, but a lot more hopeful than the average Halloween movie. Guess that’s what happens when Christmas and Halloween have a head-on collision.
The Nightmare Before Christmas was well-received on its initial release, with most people finding it refreshingly original. It still holds a ninety-five percent critics’ rating and a ninety-two percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, and has recently been added to the National Film Registry for preservation, along with Apollo 13 and Home Alone.
Roger Ebert said of the film, “It has the kind of offbeat, subversive energy that {says} wonderful things are likely to happen. As an adult who was not particularly scared by the abduction of Santa (somehow I knew things would turn out all right), I found the movie a feast for the eyes and the imagination.”
My post for the 100 Years of Warner Bros. is coming out Saturday. Thanks for reading, all, and I hope to see you then…
The Nightmare Before Christmas is available on DVD and Blu-ray from Amazon.
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