Movie Review: The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) directed by Henry Selick
Jack Skellington is the Pumpkin King, the genius auteur who leads Halloween Town each year in creating the holiday. But it’s the same holiday every year, and he’s bored. This year, after his own duties are done, Jack wanders far afield and discovers the doors to other holiday towns. In specific, he finds Christmas Town, something completely alien to his experience. Jack doesn’t understand it, but he decides he has to have it.
Jack’s enthusiasm and social status carry the rest of Halloween Town to assist him in taking over Christmas from Santa Claus, including abducting the jolly old fellow himself. The only dissenter is Sally, a patchwork woman who has Cassandra-like abilities, seeing that this plan will end in disaster but not being able to make Jack or anyone else listen to her warning. But then Jack also hasn’t noticed her crush on him.
Jack nearly succeeds at ruining Christmas, but perhaps it’s not too late if he can retrieve Santa.
This movie is certainly an achievement in stop-motion animation. The character designs are nifty, and the motion is expertly done. For that aspect, top marks.
The story, though, was only so-so. I never felt truly engaged with the characters. The most interesting character was minor villain Oogie Boogie (voiced by Ken Page with energy) who almost makes his actions seem menacing, and has one of the two good songs in the movie. (The other is of course “This is Halloween”, which opens the movie.)
I think part of the problem for me is that both holidays are divorced from their spiritual/religious significance. Without those overtones, the stakes seem trivial–Christmas and Halloween simply become about the trappings, rather than the “something more.” Jack and Sally mention that something feels missing, but neither they or the movie understand what that is.
Content note: Gruesome imagery, some younger or more sensitive viewers may have a hard time.
Recommended to stop-motion animation fans.
