Christmas Review: The Nightmare Before Christmas

I find this review a bit difficult to approach. Christmas and Halloween Reviews, of course, exist to recommend films and heap praise upon them. That said, I have yet to do a review of this movie in any form, and I find myself wanting to address the weaknesses of the movie. It’s not that the movie is in any sense “bad,” simply that director Henry Selick has so wildly outdone himself with Coraline and ParaNorman, while stop-motion technology has advanced rapidly, that Nightmare seems a bit quaint by comparison, and the animation seems odd and choppy in a way the later movies managed to avoid.

That said, however, this is still a movie that needs to be seen by anyone who hasn’t already done so. It’s dating is strictly on the technical end, as the characters are creative, and the musical numbers are absolutely amazing. The story is as simple as it needs to be, telling us a fairy tale, as we watch some truly memorable characters. There’s a reason why this movie pushes so much merchandise every year.

If anyone doesn’t know, The Nightmare Before Christmas tells the story of Jack Skellington, the skeleton king of Halloweentown (and by extension the holiday itself) who grows bored, and on a walkabout discovers Christmastown, and with it a new holiday. Jack, embodying the recklessness of his own holiday, decides he wants to take Santa’s job for a year, and rallies the creatures of Halloween to make him gifts and a sleigh, and to kidnap the real Santa for an unwelcome vacation.

Jack is unusual as a protagonist. Aside from raw enthusiasm, he has very few traditionally likable traits. He’s impulsive, selfish and utterly oblivious to the suffering of others. Furthermore, nothing in the story ever changes him for the better. He’s the embodiment of our darkest, most selfish urges. He’s not malicious, but that arguably just makes him our worst traits dressed up and playing hero.

Jack gets a love interest in the form of Sally, the voice of reason, who’s presence in Halloweentown seems downright bizarre. Surrounded by people who are completely insane, somehow this one Frankenstein-like creation of a mad scientist can see reason when all others fail to do so. Sally is every bit as much of a protagonist as Jack, and far more of a hero. I’m actually somewhat curious how their budding romance plays out, as I seriously question how long she would tolerate Jack’s childishness.

The movie also squeezes in a villain in the form of Oogie Boogie, a mysterious creature whose origins are never fully explained in the movie, and a climax. These, however, are clearly afterthoughts resolved in the last few minutes of the film. Apparently it was decided at some point that a childrens' film required at least one fight, and so we’re given that.

The movie is, for the most part, a visual and auditory experience more than a story. Every frame is a work of art, and the movie probably has more iconic images than almost any other film ever made since the invention of the camera. If you haven’t seen it, see it, along with Selick’s entire filmography since.