Not a Fan of the Style, Still Enjoyable

Rating: 7/10 (7 February 2016)

The Nightmare Before Christmas proves to be such a unique concept for a family movie. This fantasy story suggests that each holiday has a world of its own outside the boundaries of society, and two of those worlds collide in this movie: Halloweentown and Christmastown. The result creates an entertaining story of discovery and exploration.
Meet Jack Skellington. Though he is not the mayor of Halloweentown, he has a huge influence over the inhabitants as he practically runs Halloween. Something is missing in his life though, and nobody can understand this except for Sally, a woman held together by stitches who is basically a slave to her creator. When Jack comes across Christmastown by mistake it gives him a sense of great wonder and hope. Sadly, when he tries to explain his feeling of warmth and happiness this world has created for him, the inhabitants of Halloweentown are only interested in whether the holiday Christmas has any scary aspects.
The premise is very unique and sends a good message to children. However, while the story may be intriguing the dialogue seems to be simplified in order to target the attention span of children whereas good family films would challenge children to grasp dialogue with intentions that do not involve moving the plot forward or dialogue with vocabulary that is challenging to them. The way conversations or dialogue is handled in this film is slightly better than dialogue in The Polar Express (which isn't saying much).
The art direction of the film is not for everyone, but while it is dark it is not creepy enough to scare children easily. Well, maybe very little children, but certain characters like Jack or the goofy mayor with two faces keep children distracted from the Gothic style of the movie.
The best aspect of The Nightmare Before Christmas by far is the music. Each musical number is given great attention by Danny Elfman and the other writers and proves to be a very effective story- telling device within the film. If there's anything the audience will remember walking out of the film it would undoubtedly be either Jack's sad song about lacking meaning in his life, or the very upbeat and popular "What's This?"
This isn't your typical family film, but it has redeeming qualities and proves to be a very good musical.
3.0/4.0