In Halloween Town where Jack Skellington is the pumpkin king, people seem happy about what they do, all except for Jack. He's bored of doing the same thing on every Halloween and is not a happy camper. But one day he stumbles upon Christmas Town and discovers just how fantastic christmas can be, but does not quite understand the real meaning of it. Jack is so taken with the idea of Christmas that he wants to do that instead of Halloween so he kidnaps Santa Claus and takes over the job to deliver the gifts to children everywhere. Unfortunately, the meaning of Christmas is lost and Jack can't seem to get things right.
Summer is upon us so I thought it would be a great idea to write a review for The Nightmare Before Christmas. Seriously though, christmas or not, it's a fantastic flick that can be viewed over and over again, even if it's nearly summer time. Now I'm not a big fan of people singing in movies, but this is a movie where it actually works, the songs are great and the lyrics has a lot to them too of course, telling a great part of the story.
Jack Skellington is one cool dude and Halloween Town where he's king is one cool place. But Jack has gotten sick of Halloween, doing the same stuff year after year has lost its appeal and he can't seem to be bothered with it anymore. One day when out walking feeling sad, he stumbles upon Christmas Town and decides that Christmas is his new game. He runs back to Halloween Town all excited and starts talking about Christmas to the people who lives there, what it is about and how it works. The people in Halloween Town of course are a bit confused, all they know is Halloween and now suddenly they have to change everything they know since their king said so. Since no one in Halloween Town including Jack knows squat about Christmas, things of course doesn't go hand in hand with what a real Christmas would be like.
There's also a sub-plot about a girl in Halloween Town who falls for Jack and admires him from afar. That makes it different as well and it's nice to get a little romance in the middle of everything. There are a lot of things that makes this movie great, the story itself is simple but well-crafted and the whole fairy-tale feeling of the movie is amazing. It's has a lot of humour but is still dark and sad at times. One could interpret this movie in different ways as well, while some may just see it as an entertaining animated movie, some might find some kind of message in there, for instance about how you want to escape your boring routine/everyday life etc.
While being amazingly entertaining from start to finish, having fantastic and likable characters and songs that fit everything that goes on so well, the best thing might be the actual eye-candy. It's visually stunning to say the least. Personally I hate all these new animated movies that are so flashy and great looking, but that in the end are just completely hollow and has no feeling to them whatsoever. One couldn't ask for any more feeling when it comes to The Nightmare Before Christmas, it has all that and a bit more.
The Halloween Town has all these amazing character consisting of zombies, vampires, a stitched-up girl and more, but different from your normal type of vampires etc. The sceneries are fantastic and everything is very Burton-esque or Burtonish, whatever you wanna call it. It has a lot of horror elements baked in, some actual suspense, some romance and some sad moments, but are all lifted up with some comical relief, thrown in here and there just at the right time.
It's impossible to have any complaints here, as this is by far the best animated movie out there. If you haven't seen it, you better try and get your handson it asap, even though summer is upon us.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE:
MOVIE YEAR: 1993
DIRECTOR: Henry Selick
WRITING CREDITS: Tim Burton, Michael McDowell
GENRE: Animation, Fantasy, Musical, Horror
CAST: Danny Elfman, Chris Sarandon, Catherine O'Hara
COUNTRY: USA
RUNTIME: 76 min
RATING: 10/10
Nightmare Before Christmas, The Website/IMDB Click here
Nightmare Before Christmas, The Trailer Click here
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