The Nightmare Before Christmas - 1993 Review

The Nightmare Before Christmas has got to be the best Animated stop motion film I have ever seen, not that I've seen a lot, but if you've seen the old Rudolph cheesy stuff on TV during the holidays, than this gem of a Disney film is miles ahead in quality and magic.

This coming from a fan not crazy about musicals, and more used to traditional animation, but this film is spectacularly original, funny, beautiful, weird and did I mention it's stop motion, no clay here either.  The great music is by former indie rock singer Danny Elfman, who now does all of Tim Burton's scores.  

The main plot revolves on the exploits of Jack Skellington, the king of Halloween town who's grown tired of being the coolest guy in town and soon stumbles into Christmas town and re-discovers his old self thanks to a ragdoll named Sally who has a sweet spot for old Jack.

Soon after Jack gathers up the entire town of Creepy, but likable Halloween folk to make this year's holidays more fun and spooky for everyone.  Only the Christmas people don't know this, Jack's friends also kidnap old St. Nick to let Jack show the rest of the unsuspecting Christmas folk what they've been missing.

As expected everything goes haywire after not everyone's happy about Jack's scary celebration.

I won't spoil the end if you haven't seen this now classic.  but if you get the special edition DVD, there's plenty of cool extras that should make you an instant fan of Stop Motion.

After watching this you'll probably want to check out James and the Giant Peach, and Coraline, among other worthy newer releases.

elpocho.