Not a nightmarish watch for audiences at all

Rating: 6/10 (10 December 2017)

"The Nightmare Before Christmas" is an American animated musical from 1993, so this pretty short film (75 minutes) has its 25th anniversary soon and it is the first full feature film directed by Henry Selick that younger audiences today know rather for Coraline than for this one here. It was nominated for an Oscar in the visual effects category, which is a rather rare achievement for a non live-action film (lost to Jurassic Park). And composer Danny Elfman was nominated for a Golden Globe for his score. I know him very well for his composing, but I was genuinely baffled by his amazing singing voice for the main character here. Great job. The script is (to some extent) by Tim Burton and if you have seen other stuff from him, you won't be surprised one bit. So this is a film that combines horror, animation, comedy and musical and that must be a pretty unique achievement. While I don't necessarily agree with the truly high rating here on IMDb, I would still say that it was a good watch overall. The fun perspective may be in the center of it all I guess, even if it is without a doubt a more creepy film than Coraline for the most part for example. So horror animation indeed.
As for the story, horror is always difficult to combine with the spirit of Christmas. Even the classics like Grinch stuff etc. are hardly truly scary. And most filmmakers trying to combine these two have at best delivered something that could be considered a good guilty pleasure watch, but not a truly great film. Here they came pretty close. The fact how short the film is shows at times when we see for example how the villains are depicted left me a bit unimpressed. Sally's creator Finklestein was still somewhat decent and funny most of the time, even if severely underused, but the torturer near the end was pretty much completely forgettable to me. Nonetheless, one of the film's biggest strengths is the attention to detail. There are so so many characters presented in here that we find out almost nothing about, but they are interesting on a level where they could have deserved their own movie. As for the romance part, it was okay. It felt a bit rushed at times too and I would not call it a defining animation romance, but still it worked out fine and the last shot was kinda cute.
The two central characters worked out nicely too all in all. The fact that Jack may not have been too interesting in looks, was more than made up by his singing parts. I would also like to add that his affection for Christmas is interesting to me as we may see his world as scary and creepy, but it's normal for everybody who lives there. That includes the funny two-faced mayor. The abnormal aspect is getting warmth, harmony and gifts in there. The thing we see as normal. And when the worlds collide, nothing is normal anymore (the police call scene e.g.). These worlds shall not be intertwined for the sake of everybody living in them. Pay attention to how adult human's faces are never seen in here. Santa doesn't count as he's Santa and not a human. Overall, I give this film a thumbs-up. It managed for the animation genre to be an unlikely success story with an approach/subject that has little to do with what you'd expect for Christmas. In one way or another like Die Hard. What else could I add? I think that is basically all. I think the style and animation will scare some away, but if you aren't one of them, then I believe you are in for a treat. It was a good film and I recommend checking it out. A bit of a shame it took me almost a quarter of a century to finally check it out. I also think that it is worth seeing more on a big screen than a small screen, so if you haven't seen it so far, wait for 2018 and make sure you catch a viewing when it may return to theaters as a 25th anniversary tribute. In any case, see it.