By 1993,director Tim Burton was such a successful filmmaker in Hollywood that he was able to return to one of his most beloved early projects,"The Nightmare Before Christmas." It's certainly an inspired movie,as it is also very weird,and when I say "weird," I mean it's distinctly Burton.
Even though it was directed with enough competency by Henry Selick,this groundbreaking stop-motion animation film is Burton all the way,as it contains ample "esque" qualities that make this "Nightmare" uniquely his vision.
As the film opens in the twisted,"Burton"-esque village of "Halloweentown," Jack Skellington,who is dually voiced by Chris Sarandon and longtime Burton collaborator Danny Elfman,is celebrating another "horrible" Halloween.You'll be shocked and amazed at some of the town's inhabitants,who include jazz-playing zombies,Four Tenor-like vampires,a wolf man,and a wheelchair-bound scientist who occasionally opens up his cranium to (literally) scratch his brain; his creation,a Frankenstein-like scarecrow named Sally (Catherine O'Hara),yearns for contact with others and is quite fond of Jack Skellington.
But Jack's quickly growing tired of the same old routine year after year,and because he's so downtrodden with boredom,he ventures into the dark forest outside the town's borders,and accidentally stumbles onto the wondrous,jolly world of "Christmastown." Enticed by its splendor,he decides to bring back his discovery to the residents of Halloweentown,who of which are just as shocked by Christmas as he is.Jack gets the brilliant idea to pose as Santa Claus but hires three mischief-makers to kidnap the real Santa so he can share his own,misguided vision of Christmas with an unprepared world.
Painstakingly and meticulously crafted,"The Nightmare Before Christmas" is a beautiful and wonderful film from start to finish.The most famous image of this film is the cover art,which features Skellington eerily silhouetted against a full moon while he stands atop a coiled hill that overlooks a desolate graveyard.
Burton is such a wonderful director,who had already brought us one unique "esque" vision after the other,especially with the first two "Batman" films and "Edward Scissorhands" behind him as of '93 when "Nightmare" was made.
I was a kid when I first saw Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas,but I wasn't scared by it in the slightest - this world is one entirely of the imagination,and in a sense saying that the film is scary for younger children is something of a compliment.'Nightmare' is both a horror film and a musical,and fantasy and a suspense film,and like most Burton effort,comedy is thrown in at just the right moments.
With Henry Selick as director and Michael McDowell & Caroline Thompson as the screenwriters,Burton has fashioned the worlds of Halloween-town and Christmas-town as real originals,working on the cliches that are in each holiday and surrounding the worlds with a host of terrific and terrifying characters.While Halloween-town has a mayor (appropriately with two faces,one smiling one distressed),the real leader is Jack Skellington (Chris Sarandon voices with a great Danny Elfman as the singing Jack) who orchestrates Halloween every year for its citizens.But he's grown weary over the years,and after stumbling upon Christmas-town,loaded with good will towards men and a large man in a red suit,he gets his town riled up to overtake the joyous holiday.Despite one protest by Sally (an amazing Catherine O'Hara),the doll-girl who loves him,the town goes on creating Jack's vision.The results are hilarious and,indeed,spellbinding.
Much credit is given to Burton and Selick for their work on the film,but a lot should also be attributed to Denise Di Novi (co-producer and co-designer),Rick Heinrichs (visual consultant),Pete Kozachik (D.P.),and of course Danny Elfman for his perfectly fitting score and song creations.Along with the talented voice actors,Nightmare Before Christmas ends up a triumph of artistic ingenuity.Some could construe it as too weird or too stylish,but for the cult audience it has garnered over the past ten years it remains of of Burton's finest accomplishments.A+