Great For Halloween and Christmas

Rating: Null/10 (18 December 2012)

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
*** 1/2 (out of 4)
Classic stop-motion animation from producer Tim Burton and director Henry Selick about Jack Skellington, the leader of a town devoted to Halloween, who grows tired of everything being the same so he decides to wonder out to a small town where he discovers then celebrating Christmas. Wanting to crash the party, Jack takes over the role of Santa Claus with his added bit of darkness. The stop-motion sub-genre has always been something that fascinated me just from a technical level. It's just amazing to me how much work has to be done in order to get any movie made but the stop-motion process just blows my mind because of everything that has to be done. THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE Christmas is without question one of the greatest looking films the genre has ever seen and no matter how many times I see it there's always something I see for the first time. The amount of details in every shot is just amazing to see and especially when you really look and notice how much is going on during every scene. I think the most impressive stuff is in Halloweentown because of all the detail and the terrific imagination going on. All of the characters, especially Jack and the mad doctor, are perfect but even the smaller ones just contain so much imagination that you can't help but get involved with what's going on. The music numbers are also extremely entertaining and quite clever in their lyrics. I think what really works so well is that most people feel Christmas or Halloween are the best holidays out there and this film really captures the spirit of both so well.