The Nightmare Before Christmas (DVD)

Halloween is one of the only holidays in which I morph into a complete Scrooge, gone are the days of cute kiddies in adorable costumes going door to door, with their parents anxiously lingering in the background, fun parties with apple bobbing contests are gone. Nowadays it's ruled by teenagers, often on their way home from school, harassing people for money or "treats" and threatening them with "tricks" if they don't hand something ...
...decorating the garden with loo roll or reaching more extreme measures like putting fireworks through letter boxes. I refuse to spend my husbands hard earned money on goodies and treats to simply hand out to strangers and so every Halloween I unplug the doorbell, draw the curtains and refuse to answer the door to anybody (my family and I have a "ring first" procedure for visiting) I do have one small tradition that I undertake every year, ... more

Halloween is one of the only holidays in which I morph into a complete Scrooge, gone are the days of cute kiddies in adorable costumes going door to door, with their parents anxiously lingering in the background, fun parties with apple bobbing contests are gone. Nowadays it's ruled by teenagers, often on their way home from school, harassing people for money or "treats" and threatening them with "tricks" if they don't hand something over, whether it be as simple as throwing and egg, decorating the garden with loo roll or reaching more extreme measures like putting fireworks through letter boxes. I refuse to spend my husbands hard earned money on goodies and treats to simply hand out to strangers and so every Halloween I unplug the doorbell, draw the curtains and refuse to answer the door to anybody (my family and I have a "ring first" procedure for visiting) I do have one small tradition that I undertake every year, just so I can provide a slightly more interesting answer than "nothing" when people ask what I did that night, that hard earned money of my other halves is spent on a few chocolate treats and drinks for him and I and we sit together, hiding from any trick or treaters, watching Tim Burtons "The Nightmare Before Christmas"

For anyone who has not seen the film I should say that it is not technically a Christmas film despite it's name, yes it does feature Santa Claus and even Christmas land but the story revolves around Jack Skellington, the ruler of Halloween Town, and his desire to fill a hole in his soul, to experience something different and new.

The Story-
The Halloween celebrations have just drawn to a finish and the town mayor is handing out the awards. It's been the most frightening year yet and the citizens of Halloween Town are on a high, all that is except their leader Jack Skellington. Every year Jack plans the events for Halloween and every year he outdoes himself but he is no longer satisfied, something is missing, he slips away from the celebrations and wanders through the night until he unwittingly stumbles upon a place he's never been before, a clearing surrounded by unusual trees, each tree has a door and Jack is drawn to the most impressive of the doors, a sparkling, green Christmas tree, opening the door Jack is sucked into another land and marvels at the sights around him, asking the question "what's this" until he finds himself under a sign saying "Christmas Town"

A search is being carried out back in Halloween Town as the citizens worry over Jacks day long disappearance, as they discuss possible places to search Jack arrives back, full of excitement and calls a town meeting, he feels he must share his experience of Christmas Town. At the meeting Jack struggles to get the people to understand the warm, glowing feelings that Christmas Town gave him and they interpret all the lovely things he describes to them in a more Halloween like manner. Desperate to get the people to understand Jack begins conducting experiments on items he brought back from Christmas Town, in a search to understand what Christmas is and how it works. Finally after much research he reaches his conclusion, this year Christmas will be carried out by the people of Halloween Town.

Meanwhile Sally the rag doll, who regularly escapes from her creator Dr. Finklestein, has had a vision, that Christmas will be destroyed if the people of Halloween take it over. Desperate, she tries to explain her vision to Jack but he is so swept away with his plans that he ignores her warnings and sets about planning the Christmas celebrations, creating gifts and even giving Santa a "vacation"

As Christmas arrives and Jack sets off on his journey to deliver the gifts Sally decides to try and stop him, failing in her initial attempts she decides the only one who can truly help is Santa Clause and so she sets off to free him from the clutches of evil Oogie Boogie.

Will Jack have a successful journey? Will Sally free Santa and save Christmas? Will Sally and Jack ever realise they belong together? You'll have to watch to find out.

The Nightmare Before Christmas-
The Nightmare Before Christmas is an animated film released in 1993, produced by Tim Burton (Batman, Batman Returns) and directed by Henry Selik, with songs by Burton's long time associate Danny Elfman.

Animated in a stop motion style where small character models are posed second by second, each individual movement being captured on film and then pieced together creating a smooth flowing movement, The Nightmare Before Christmas was the first movie of it's kind, attempting the animation on such a large scale. Rather than attempt to create realistic looking characters they gave them a more fantastical appearance with the Halloween Town characters more twisted and the Christmas characters well rounded with a rosy glow, by giving them such different appearances it is easy to separate the two making Jack truly stand out against the setting of Christmas Town and giving Santa a real presence in Halloween Land, the differences in their two worlds is plain to see and the viewer quickly realises that Christmas is simply not meant to be ran by the people of Halloween Land.

The Halloween characters and backgrounds were limited to greys, blacks and oranges as their primary colours, with the occasional green and white thrown in creating a darker more sinister setting, giving the real feel of Halloween, ghostly and eerie. In contrast Christmas Town features all the bright and sparkly colours you can imagine, capturing the joy and light of the festive season, rich deep reds, greens and gold set against a snowy white background, an absolute carnival of colour and twinkling lights, you can see why Jack would be struck by the difference in the two lands.

The types of characters were well chosen with Christmas Town being made up of Santa, Mrs Clause and the elves. Halloween Town is more varied in it's characters and features all sorts of horror creatures like vampires, werewolves, swamp creatures, witches and zombies, it is with the characters from Halloween Town that you can see the animators had real fun and let their imaginations run wild, the characters are varied and suitably horrible looking.

The music in the movie is suitably haunting or festive when appropriate, from mournful songs full of sorrow and despair to more upbeat tunes full of the joy of new experiences, Danny Elfman has created the perfect soundtrack to match the movie, calling in orchestras for certain dramatic moments but also giving the songs a ghostly, haunted feel with more twang in the vocals, certainly Sally's song accounting her doubt over Jacks mission and her feelings for him shows this, her voice could be described as haunted tones flowing on the wind and set to a sombre backing melody primarily made up of the unusual tones of an accordion. It is certainly one of the more unusual "musicals" out there.

The story is quite classic in its basic tones, a successful man feels his life is missing something and he strives to find out what that is, meanwhile a female with unrequited love for the man endeavours to help him and the couple eventually fall in love, of course all this romance is mixed in with a good deal of light horror and adventure as Jacks plans, to fill the hole in his soul by taking over Christmas, unfold to their inevitable conclusion. While his intentions are never bad Jacks plans were always doomed to fail as his people simply could not understand the culture and traditions of the people of Christmas Town, it is quite representative of our own cultures here in the real world. By choosing Christmas as the holiday to be taken over in this film the creators chose perfectly, undoubtedly the most popular holiday season and one of the best loved and widely recognised characters (Santa Claus) it was bound to create the appropriate level of tension as a joyous, loving holiday was unintentionally taken over by evil villains, vengeful toys and freaky creatures.

Cast-
The cast of The Nightmare Before Christmas is naturally made up of voice actors, with many actors portraying more then one character, they do a great job and not one voice seems out of place of mismatched to their character.

Chris Sarandon: Jack Skellington (talking)
Danny Elfman: Jack (singing), Barrell, Clown with the Tearaway Face
Catherine O' Hara: Sally, Shock
William Hickey: Dr. Finklestein
Glenn Shadix: The Mayor of Halloween Town
Paul Reubens: Lock
Ken Page: Oogie Boogie
Ed Ivory: Santa
Susan McBride: Big Witch
Debi Durst: Corpse Kid, Corpse Mother, Small Witch
Greg Proops: Harlequin Demon, Devil, Sax Player

My Opinion-
I adore this movie, it is neither too horror based or too sentimentally seasonal providing a great balance to the film. It is rated PG and while I'll happily sit and watch it with my other half I wouldn't watch it with my children, it is not particularly gruesome but it could be a little scary for younger viewers, especially considering all the ghouls and monsters and the abduction of Santa Clause.

The soundtrack and songs are quite catchy and I always end up singing the songs long after the movie has ended. I love how they have captured the spookiness of Halloween in a lot if the tracks, even the singing voices used appropriately match the characters and the mood of their songs.

With a run time of 73 minutes this actually seems like quite a short film, the story flows well, with each scene matched perfectly to the next. There's never a moment of thinking "why was that bit there?" or "what was the point in that character?" and so every moment of the movie is worth watching. I like how they've split the film over two holiday seasons, it allows you to view at both times of year rather then feeling restricted to it simply being a horror for Halloween or a festive movie for Christmas. Of course you can watch it all year round if you so desire, there's no rule telling you only to watch it twice a year!

The animation is fantastic for its type, with the occasional hand animated background and characters that give the film real depth. The scenes were all lit with real life style lighting on the sets, rather than large overpowering studio lights, creating proper shadows and making the film feel as real as it could. All the characters move smoothly with a wide range of expression and emotions allowing you to identify with them and understand their mood.

I think they've chosen a good story and there are lots of little threads leading off from the main storyline, I love the side story of Sally's escape attempts from Dr. Finklestein and think the addition of Lock, Shock and Barrel as three mischievous trick or treaters is perfect, they're the kind of kids you do not want knocking on your door this Halloween. I find the idea of the doors leading to all the different seasonal towns fascinating but cant help wondering what the other worlds would look like, I cant quite see a sequel being made though, The Nightmare Before Easter doesn't quite have the same ring to it. The little bit of romance thrown in is typical for a Disney based film but it is not at all out of place and actually has an important role in the story, after all if Sally didn't care for Jack she would never have helped him and Christmas would be forever ruined, everyone likes a happy ending which inevitably in this films involves the two realising their mutual feelings. I actually like the romantic thread of the tale and was perfectly happy with the characters being matched as a couple, I'm an old romantic really.

All in all I'd say this is a great film to enjoy as a family, just as long as you think your little ones won't become scared, I highly recommend it. I'll be sat in front of my TV once again this Halloween enjoying the film and pretending I'm not home, Bah Humbug…………no wait…….. wrong season, Happy Halloween!

Review can also been seen on my Dooyou account as Butterbear. 

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