A milestone in animation and Christmas movies

Rating: 10/10 (4 December 2011)

I was a child when I first saw this movie. My father has always been a big fan of Tim Burton, and he couldn't wait to show me this on our brand new VHS. I didn't understand the movie at first because I was so young, and for years I didn't appreciate how much effort went in here. Now that I have actually developed taste, I can share with you my opinion on this revolutionary masterpiece.
The plot of "Nightmare" is based on the Tim Burton poem of the same name. It's about a Skeleton named Jack who is the king of HalloweenTown, a place where the only holiday is Halloween. Every time the celebrations end up the same, and the whole year is spent preparing for the next Halloween. Jack, being in charge of all this, gets bored and decides that he is no longer going to bother with Halloween. He travels away from town with his ghost dog, Zero, much to the town's dismay.
After days of travelling, Jack discovers a group of doors, each one acting as a portal to the different towns representing each holiday. Intrigued, he opens the door the ChristmasTown, and discovers his new favourite holiday. Jack returns triumphantly to HalloweenTown, telling everyone (through the medium of a song) to prepare for something new and exciting: Christmas. As one would expect, the people of HalloweenTown have rather dark visions of Christmas, and with an evil monster named Oogie Boogie in the mix, something's bound to go wrong! The whole movie is brilliantly presented in traditional stop-motion animation, with all 227 character models looking as they should; either bright and colourful Christmas workers or spooky Halloween creeps. Every character, however scary, is lovable from start to finish The music is pure genius and each line falls on top of the backing like brandy on a pudding. Danny Elfman does a great job as Jack's singing voice, which is expected considering he wrote the songs and therefore knows exactly how they should sound.
Considering all these great elements of a movie, I would definitely dub it as a must-see and my favourite Christmas movie of all time. I watch it every Christmas Eve and will no doubt do so for years to come.