Mutant Reviewers from Hell do
"There's children throwing snowballs instead of throwing heads"

1993 PG / Animated Horror Directed by: Henry Selick Starring: Danny Elfman, Chris Sarandon, Catherine O'Hara

Tagline

A ghoulish tale with wicked humour & stunning animation.

Summary Capsule

Halloween kidnaps Christmas and puts on their own twisted holiday.

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Amazon.com: DVD | Amazon.com: Soundtrack

Justin's Rating: If only the Blair Witch was made in Claymation
Justin's Review: One of my favorite attractions at Disney World is the Haunted Mansion. It's so chintzy and non-threatening for a true scare experience, still it manages to bring off a great atmosphere of, well, Halloween. What I associate with Halloween, at least: full moon nights in the middle of cornfields, ghost-infested castles, and cheezy optical illusions. Did anyone else try to do obscene things to that hologram ghost that appears in your carriage mid-way through the ride? Anyway, it's that kind of attitude that treats the whole death/horror thing fully tongue-in-cheek that is brought so faithfully to the screen with Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas.

"Christmas is almost more scary in truth than Halloween. It promotes obese burglars who plant God-knows-what in our living rooms, snarfing up all our cookies and dairy products without a single concern to whatever child might not be getting food the next day."

Incidentally, this isn't a Tim Burton-directed film, although many have mistaken it to be. Actually, the story, songs and designs do come from Burton's mind, but a different person actually directed the film. Ironically, Nightmare has become one of the calling cards of a Burton Goth-wannabe. Go easy on them, when you reveal the sordid truth behind this film. It takes a loooong time to put on that makeup, and we don't want to ruin it with tears.

The world of this movie is one in which I would love to live, except that the average height of these freaky clay figures is about four inches, and I would appear to be the Jolly Italian Giant to them, remolding entire continents at will. It's a world where Halloween exists perpetually, although the subject of candy really never comes up. Where's the Candy Fairy, I asks ya? No, I refuse to believe it's a mere myth! Our protagonist is Jack the skeleton pumpkin king, who has a head that outweighs the rest of his body by a ratio of four to one. Jack is not truly content with his role of... um... inspirational speaking is about all I can come up with. He has a guest voice that comes in any time the movie launches into song and dance (about every six minutes) and mopes around all depressed that Halloween is depressing. Throwing the entire Halloweenland into chaos, Jack stumbles upon Christmasland and promptly takes it over.

Frankly, Christmas is almost more scary in truth than Halloween. It promotes obese burglars who plant God-knows-what in our living rooms, snarfing up all our cookies and dairy products without a single concern to whatever child might not be getting food the next day. There are flying horse-things, evil midgets, endless showings of It's A Wonderful Yet Boring Life on TV, mall parking problems, little kids boosting the sale of Pokémon Power Rangers through the roof, trees butchered to be placed on display as they slowly wither away, and egg nog, a mysterious substance that hasn't quite convinced me that monkey brains aren't involved.

The moral of Nightmare Before Christmas is that if you're not satisfied with the world, just take it over and you'll somehow make it worse. Or was that the Nazis and World War 2? Hm. So, yay, here's a great non-spooky yet wonderfully atmospheric haunted house of a movie. You need some of that in your life. Trust me.

Fun-sized Snickers for all! Ooh, a head bag! Chock-full of heady goodness. Skelly vs. Frosty

Didja Notice? [some sources: IMDb]

• In the song, "This is Halloween," the lyrics "...tender lumplings everywhere..." refers to "Tender Lumplings," a song done by composer-singer Danny Elfman when he was with Oingo Boingo.
• The character Sally was animated to look like Tim Burton's girlfriend Lisa Marie, who appears in other Burton films Ed Wood, Mars Attacks, and Sleepy Hollow.
• Lenny P. writes in, "When all of the bats are flying around, you can see the strings/wires that are attached to the bats."
• The cat from Tim Burton's first film, Vincent, is present in the beginning of the film. It's the cat that jumps onto the garbage can.
• No adult faces are shown
• The snake seen in the movie, is the Saturn Sandworm from Beetlejuice
• The Mayor of Halloweentown's fingernails are painted red. [Thanks TheOogieBoogieMan]

Is It Worth Staying Through End Credits?

No.

Intermission! [some sources: IMDb]

I've noticed that Sam Goody, Suncoast, and Media Play (all owned by the same company) have been selling Nightmare Before Christmas toys for about five years now. They're fully priced, from $20-$40, and selling not at all. Every time I see these poor, orphaned, and undoubtably overstocked items, I get the urge to go up to the management. "What are you thinking?" I'd say, and they would listen. "Do you honestly think that by not reducing prices on a product thats YEARS out of date you'd be able to turn a profit? Is the market demand that huge for other old movie toys, like Godzilla dolls and ID4 alien fighter pods? Are you completely INSANE?"

Behemoth is based on B-movie actor/Swedish wrestler Tor Johnson.

In the original Tim Burton poem on which the movie is based, no characters appear besides Jack, Zero, and Santa.

Groovy Quotes

Jack Skellington: [singing] There's children busy throwing snowballs instead of throwing heads. There's people building toys, absolutely no one's dead!

Police officer: Attacked by Christmas toys. That's strange, that's the second toy complaint we've had.

[To the Easter Bunny]
Behemoth: BUNNY!

Jack Skellington: And they call him Sandy Claws!

Dr. Finkelstein: Sally, that's twice this month you've slipped deadly nightshade into my tea and run off.
Sally: Three times!

If you liked this movie, try these:

• Sleepy Hollow
• Beetlejuice
• Corpse Bride