The Nightmare Before Christmas
By Joy Fine
The Nightmare before Christmas is a delightful Halloween movie that tells the story of a bunch of characters who live in Halloween Town. It is a musical with most of the movie done in song. This enjoyable work, done in stop-motion effects, was the brain child of Tim Burton. He brought to life the story of Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King, who becomes bored after the most recent Halloween scare fest and wants more out of life than simply being the best performer at the yearly Halloween event. When he stumbles upon an area in the forest where there are several unusual tree, all of them have doors leading to different holidays, he accidently finds himself in Christmas Town. This is exactly what Jack is looking for, a place that is different with its own joy and magic. This is what he feels he is missing and so must bring back to Halloween Town to make a difference to their lives.
There are several other interesting characters to delight the watcher. Sally is the rag doll who longs for freedom from the mad scientist who made her. She continues to concoct potions to give him to allow her to escape and be part of the adventures going on in town. She is in love with Jack but thinks he will never return her feelings. It is Sally who tries to help Jack understand the wrong in what he is proposing when he decides to take over the Christmas celebration for himself, to try to get the ghouls, spooks and creatures of the night that make up Halloween Town to all pitch in. Other interesting characters include Zero who is Jack’s ghost dog with the nose that lights the way. The mayor who has two faces, one happy and one desperately sad, whose best line in the movie is, “I’m only an elected official, I can’t make decisions”. This is said when he is unable to find Jack the day after the celebration as he is anxious to begin planning the next year’s event. He panics at the Pumpkin King’s absence since there are only three hundred and sixty four more days until next Halloween.
Other interesting characters are Oggie’s boys, who go to bring back Santa Claus so Jack can replace him and Oggie Boogie himself who is, or course, really the Boogeyman. He winds up with Santa and plans to destroy him. There so many delightful characters in The Nightmare before Christmas which is one of the reasons that the movie keeps your interest. It is only a short one; seventy six minutes long, and feels like it flies by. Danny Elfman does the singing for Jack, though the voice is done by someone else. Catherine O’Hara does Sally’s voice. Most of the actors who did voices voiced more than one character. Greg Proops, from Whose Line, did several voices. It is said that the character of Oggie Boogie was inspired by Cab Calloway.
Many little things in this movie are so obviously Tim Burton. There are little bits that come from several of his other movies including the snake that is the Sand Worm from Beetle Juice, the duck from Batman and the cat from an early Burton movie called Vincent.
If you are looking for a fun Halloween movie The Nightmare before Christmas, rated parental guidance, is worth renting for Halloween this year. Despite being released in 1993, there is a timelessness about this that will make it worth watching for years to come. Even Jack’s total destruction of Christmas will bring laughs to the whole family
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