The Nightmare Before Christmas Review

 

        Growing up around the time of middle school, I would see my classmates wearing merchandise for the Disney film The Nightmare Before Christmas. I would spot the shirts and other apparel at the store Hot Topic. It would be years later to finally sit down and watch this stop motion classic. Although Tim Burton’s name is attached to the title, he didn’t direct it. His classmate at CalArts took over director duties while Burton was busy filming Batman Returns for Warner Bros. Regardless, The Nightmare Before Christmas is a classic animated Disney film that has made an impact to many. SPOILERS will appear in the review.

1. The musical numbers

        The main highlight of the entire feature is the musical numbers. The first one “This is Halloween” is such a catchy tune and immediately introduces the world of Halloweentown. The animation is entirely stop motion with a few traditional animated segments that are just ghosts flying around. Every citizen in the town have a lyric in the song and it shows how bustling the town is. 

        All of the music is written and composed by Danny Elfman. He even lends his voice when Jack Skellington is singing his songs. I feel that with the approach that the film had, it felt very Broadway. Meaning that the entire film is dominated with songs and having a minority of the film be just dialogue. Which is the overall vibe I got when sitting down to view it. There’s really so much to talk about the music that the best songs are the ones involving Jack. 

2. Jack

        This character has been marketable machine for Disney since his face is seen in a graphic t-shirt or Halloween decoration. One would think that Danny Elfman would act but he only provides the singing voice. The character is actually voiced by Chris Sarandon. His voice somewhat matches Elfman’s that whenever he goes into a song number, the transition isn’t very stark.

        Despite being called the Halloween King, he actually is bored with the title since he wants to do something different. The moment where he makes it to Christmas Town is where he decides to do something different. I love the moments where he tries to figure out what he saw such as him reading books about Christmas. Having absolutely no clue what the holiday is about. He gets everyone involved with Christmas but putting a scary spin to it.

3. What Makes It Good

        Aside from the main points, I think something that gets overlooked about this film is just the overall message it has. It happens when Jack fails to be Santa. He sings about having failed and switching his mood by saying he was good being the Pumpkin King. It’s different from the overall approach with the film’s contemporaries in animation. For one thing, it uses Aesop’s fables with a twist. 

        With most of the Disney animated films, the overall idea of the character is to be whoever they want to be. Or dream who you want to be and it will happen. Here though, it’s the opposite. Jack learns that although he wasn’t a good Santa, as he got shot down by cannons. He learns that he was good in his original position and decides to do good.

        It’s different and kind of unique for its time. There hasn’t been a film that I am aware that has that morale or lesson that it’s okay to fail. Since there’s a level of expectation that having to fail is not good and looked down upon. Here though, is pretty endearing to have Jack acknowledge that he did fail. 

4. Overall

        One of the good things is that there hasn’t been a sequel to this film. While there have been video games that are supposed to be sequels, are mostly just non canon. I haven’t had the faintest idea of why many kids or teens are drawn into the film. Perhaps it’s the way the characters look like or the music since it’s not a midnight film. I enjoyed it, the film is quirky and heartfelt. It has an audience and I can appreciate that it’s sort of like the Rankin Bass productions of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer with the stop motion animation. It’s another great addition to Disney’s ever-growing catalogue of animated features. 

        The Nightmare Before Christmas gets a four out of five.