The Nightmare Before Christmas

Release Date: October 29, 1993

Watch Date: October 1, 2023

“Enter an extraordinary world filled with magic and wonder, where every holiday has its own special land. This is the heartfelt tale of Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town and all things that go bump in the night. Bored with the same old tricks and treats, he yearns for something more, and soon stumbles upon the glorious magic of Christmas Town. When Jack decides to bring this joyful holiday back to Halloween Town, his dream to fill Santa’s shoes unravels, and it’s up to Sally, the rag doll who loves him, to stitch things together again.”

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    “There are few who would deny, at what I do I am the best,”

    Jack Skellington is not wrong there.

    This movie is a cult classic, a favorite reference of teenagers just trying to be edgy, a rare Halloween and Christmas classic for a damn good reason. At what it does, it is indisputably the best.

    Tim Burton’s gothic worlds may seem a little stale to us in the year 2023, but back when this film came out the design of every single character and the world they inhabited was unique and gorgeous. There is a reason these characters adorn countless pieces of merchandise and innumerable human bodies in the form of tattoos. The residents of Halloween Town are iconic, as is the town itself.

    The stop-motion animation is also extremely well done. Unlike older animated movies, this has a classic feel that will never get old. It will always look good for it’s age because it looks exactly as it does when it was shot, and there is nothing to compare it too. Stop-motion does not improve with the years, it just is, a perfect little technique unto itself, and technology improving won’t change a single thing about that.

    And then there’s the music. God, I’ve been singing these songs most of my life. I quote it when I’m feeling particularly smart, “Won’t they be impressed I am a genius!”, and the moment the first notes start up for “This is Halloween” I can think of very few people that wouldn’t immediately recognize it and sing right along. How many other musicals can claim that? Maybe Hamilton, but that’s about all I know of, and even then you still have to be in the right room. There is no ‘right room’ with ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ everyone knows it.

    Well, except for Bob. Now despite this being our son’s favorite film, as of last year. Despite the fact that our son insisted he and his sister dress up as Jack and Sally for Halloween this year. Despite the entire three months of nonstop ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ songs that occurred last spooky season, somehow Bob just…missed it. Somehow, he never sat down to watch it, or he was always busy. I don’t know how that could have feasibly happened. But when we explained to our children that we would be watching Halloween movies, and our son got super excited to watch his favorite movie, Bob made the comment “I’ve never seen that movie before.”

    How?

    I don’t know. But he’s seen it now. And he was dully impressed and our son was extremely excited to share it with his father and it was all very good and heartwarming.

    His only gripe, which happens to be mine as well, is the story. The story is a little bit lacking. I’ve never really been sure what the point of it is. To be happy with who you are? To try new things as a way to get in touch with the things about you that really matter? That you can’t force yourself to be something you’re not? And the romance between Jack and Sally just doesn’t feel as epic or as timeless to me as it seems to for most other people. Jack is an iconic character, and so is Sally, but she just sort of loves him from the shadows and he realizes it at the last second. I suppose he appreciates that she was willing to try and get him to see who he was and what he was doing wrong when everyone else in his life worships him but…I don’t know. Those parts just feel a little weak when compared to the rest.

    But you can ignore it all, because the story leads to the epic music, and it’s all happening in a beautifully designed world. It’s the perfect level of spooky, and it gives Halloween a legendary figure, just like the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus and…that’s all of them that I can think of. But the Pumpkin King is in charge of Halloween in this household, and I have absolutely no problem with that.