The Nightmare Before Christmas DVD > Reviews > The Nightmare Before Christmas

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Loved it
Story	Outstanding
Characters / Performances	Outstanding
Special Effects	Outstanding
How does it compare to similar films?	Outstanding

Advantages:	A stunning animated classic .
Disadvantages:	None .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas:
Special Edition DVD

Introduction

The tagline for The Nightmare Before Christmas was: "A ghoulish tale with wicked humour and stunning animation"; I hardly think that does this truly classic masterpiece justice.

I first watched The Nightmare Before Christmas in 1993, (the year it was released), when my Mum got it for me to keep me occupied on Christmas eve. I have been a huge fan ever since and my interest has grown and I now a massive fan of Tim Burton as well as most things dark and twisted! Anyway my ever-so-wonderful fiancé got me the Special Edition DVD as a Christmas present, needless to say I was pleased as punch, over-the-moon, chuffed-to-bits etc etc. I watched it straight away and decided to write a review for all you lovely Ciao people!

The Nightmare Before Christmas was a groundbreaking film being the first full length stop-motion animated feature ever. Stop motion animation, for all those of you who are wondering, is a way of animating objects such as clay models to make them appears if they are moving. In short the objects are shot, then the film is stopped while the objects are moved ever so slightly and shot again. It has been used in extensively in children's TV for years on things like morph, the magic roundabout and in films such as Wallace and Gromit. For more information on Stop-Motion animation go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/stop_motion_animation.

The writer and co-producer, (along with Denise Di Novi), of The Nightmare Before Christmas was Tim Burton. As most of you will know, Tim Burton is famous for directing amazing films such as Beetle juice and Edward Scissorhands and producing films such as Batman Forever and James and the Giant Peach. Tim Burton has also had a collection of poems published called The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories.

Tim Burton was clearly influenced by a pen and ink artist called Edward Gorey, (such a cool name). He produces really dark looking pictures my favourite being "Garden Ornament Etching". If you look at The Nightmare Before Christmas you can really see the influence. Check out www.goreyography.com for some of his work and more information.

Tim Burton's official website is: www.timburton.com and you can check out his entry on Wikipedia at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Burton.

The director was a guy named Henry Selick who also directed James and the Giant Peach, Monkey Bone and Moon Girl. It is rumoured that there was a lot of friction between Tim Burton and Henry Selick during the production of The Nightmare Before Christmas as Selick felt he was not being consulted enough; they must have sorted all out though as they worked together again 3 years later on James and the Giant Peach.
The Music and Lyrics were done by Danny Elfman, the same guy that does the music for The Simpsons, Desperate Housewives theme tune, Charlie and The Chocolate factory, the list just goes on and on. You don't need me to tell you that he is one talented guy.
The Screenplay was by Caroline Thompson who wrote the recent film The Corpse Bride.

Film Review

The Nightmare Before Christmas tells the story of Jack Skelington, (The Pumpkin King), King of Halloween Town and his plot to take over Christmas.

Jack arrives back from the best, (or worst), Halloween ever to much celebration and praise. The whole town is very happy except for Jack who feels despondent at the routine and longs for something different and the chance to try something new.
Leaving the town celebrating Jack wonders off and comes across a grove in the woods that he has never seen before. All the trees in the grove have little doors with symbols on them and Jack decides to go through the door depicting a Christmas tree and ends up in Christmas Town.

He is spellbound by what he sees in Christmas Town and rushes back to Halloween Town full of excitement.

He is greeted back at Halloween with much joy as the Townsfolk have been desperately searching for him and he quickly calls a town meeting.

The town meeting scene is one of the best in the film as all the inhabitants are gathered and you can see all of the twisted characters in one place.

Jack tries to explain Christmas but the townspeople just can't grasp the concept. Despite this Jack still unveils his plan to kidnap Santa Claus and take over Christmas. He has the best intensions and thinks that Santa would like to have a break but inevitably everything goes wrong with dark and hilarious consequences.

The way the film is drawn is just superb. In my opinion some of the characters like Jack Skelington and Lock, Shock and Barrel are some of Tim Burton's best creations. The scenery is breathtaking and displays Tim Burton's obsession with detail that is reviled only by Quentin Tarantino.

The Nightmare Before Christmas is a musical. The songs are amazing and fit the characters that sing them perfectly. Danny Elfman is something of a genius and has excelled himself on this film.

The Songs are as follows:
Overture - Orchestra
Opening - Patrick Stewart
This Is Halloween - Danny Elfman
Jack's Lament - Citizens of Halloween Town
Doctor Finkelstein/In the Forest - Danny Elfman
What's This? - Patrick Stewart and Halloween Cast
Town Meeting Song - Danny Elfman
Jack and Sally Montage - Danny Elfman and Cast
Jack's Obsession - Patrick Stewart and Halloween Cast
Kidnap the Sandy Claws - Danny Elfman and Cast
Making Christmas - Danny Elfman and the Citizens of Halloween Town
Nabbed - Patrick Stewart and Halloween Cast
Oogie Boogie's Song - Ken Page with Ed Ivory
Sally's Song - Cathrine O'Hara
Christmas Eve Montage - Patrick Stewart and Halloween Cast
Poor Jack - Danny Elfman
To The Rescue - Patrick Stewart and Halloween Cast
Finale/Reprise - Danny Elfman, Cathrine O'Hara, Citizens of Halloween
Closing - Patrick Stewart
End Title - Patrick Stewart and Halloween Cast

I know that a lot of people don't like musicals but this has a different feel. The songs aren't accompanied by stunningly choreographed dance routines or performed by perfect looking specimens of humanity. These are dark songs performed by freaky looking monsters in Halloween Town; So much cooler! My fiancé hates musicals but he loves The Nightmare Before Christmas.

I was going to tell you all about the characters but I think it'll be more fun for people to find out by watching the film. They really are a visual treat and are so well thought out it would be a shame to spoil it for you. I will say my favourites are Jack Skelington and his ghost dog, Zero, Lock, Shock and Barrel and The Harlequin.

All in all I think this is a great film for any time of the year, (but obviously its best at Christmas), and for all ages. I've watched it so many times and I still really enjoy it and see new things 12 years later.

DVD Review

Okay let's get the boring bit out of the way; I'm sure you'll all dying to know this…
Certificate: PG, (some scenes may not be suitable for very young children)
Language: None
Sex/Nudity: None
Violence: Mild Horror
Theme/Contents: Children's Animation
Format: PAL, DVD
Languages: (Dolby Digital 5.1) English, Italian and Spanish
Subtitles: English/English for the Hearing Impaired, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese
Running Time: 73 Minutes

The Special Bonus Features on this DVD are, (drum roll)…

Deleted Scenes and Animated Sequences
Behind the Scenes at the Studio
Storyboards and Image Gallery
Audio Commentary and Trailers

The deleted scenes are not as good as I had hoped. Because this is an animated film I think a lot of the "cuts" were made during production and the quality of the deleted scenes is very poor. Some are pre-animation and some are roughly animated. It is interesting to watch if you are a big The Nightmare Before Christmas fan but if not it's probably best not to watch them.

The behind the scenes documentary is really interesting with most of the production crew talking about their parts and how the film came together. You also get to see lots of really cool models of the characters.

The storyboards and image gallery is really a storyboard to film comparison. You get to see the hand drawn storyboard images above the finished film scenes. This is great and really shows the level of planning and the amount of work that goes into a stop motion animation.

The Audio commentary is by the director, Henry Selick and Pete Kozachik, the director of photography. It is a bit boring to be honest and I just couldn't sit through the whole film with people talking over it!

The menus on the DVD are beautiful and really show it off well.

The DVD is available to buy from Amazon, (www.amazon.co.uk), priced at £5.97 ex. delivery and at Play, (www.play.com), for £6.99 inc. delivery. The soundtrack is available from Amazon for £4.12 ex. Delivery. You can also buy a ton of merchandise, from fridge magnets to crystal goblets and of course Jack dolls in their own coffin shaped boxes, check out Forbidden Planet, EBay or you local collectables/comic shop for a huge selection. I defiantly recommend both and for about £10 I think it would be a very good purchase.