The Nightmare Before Christmas

       What's this? What's this? Another Tim Burton movie. This time, it's from Disney! It's the Halloween and Christmas classic, The Nightmare Before Christmas. By the way, Tim Burton didn't direct this masterpiece, Harry Selick did. But Burton did write the story and did the artwork in this movie. But what does it matter? What matters is that this is a perfect family movie for Halloween and Christmastime.
      Jack Skellington (played by Chris Sarandon), the king of Halloween Town, is tired of doing the same old stuff every year on Halloween. He wants to do something different. One day, Jack discovers the wonders of Christmastime. Inspired from the idea of Christmas, the Pumpkin King decides to take responsibility on spreading joy to the world with his own little twist. Jack shares his idea about Christmas to all of his friends. They love the idea of spreading Christmas joy. But Sally (played by Catherine O'Hara), disagrees with the idea of taking over Christmas, for she thinks it could end badly. Is she right?
      This movie is awesome! The story is immortal, it has both scary and funny moments, catchy songs by Danny Elfman (who also does the singing voice for Jack), and best of all, the animation. The stop motion animation is what caught my attention when I first saw it in the theaters in 3D back in 2006. I've seen Rankin/Bass stop motion animation before I saw Nightmare Before Christmas, but this kind of stop motion animation, Tim Burton style, it was like nothing I've ever seen before at the time. It's perfect!

                         
                  Parents Guide: This movie is rated PG for some scary images. There's some suggestive elements in the movie that kids may not understand. Also, some of the lyrics of some of the songs are a little dark.

                   Did You Know?: Tim Burton wrote a three page poem called "The Nightmare Before Christmas" back in the 80s when he was an animator at Disney. His inspirations were Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and A Visit from St. Nick ('Twas the Night Before Christmas). Horror movie legend Vincent Price was originally cast to play Santa Claus, but after the death of his wife, Price's health began to fail and his voice became weak. Vincent Price died in 1993, the year the film was released. Tim Burton considered to make this a TV special rather than a feature film. This was the first fully animated Disney movie not to be done with traditional animation (although some cel animation was used).

Tim Burton with the characters of the movie.