A feast for the eyes and ears ... even if it's not technically a Tim Burton film

Rating: 8/10 (31 July 2018)

An ambitious stop motion film which sees Jack the Pumpkin King journey from his native Hallowe'en Town to the neighbouring Christmas Town. When he attempts to bring the joy of the festive season to his horror-happy friends, they love it ... only because they've got the wrong end of the stick.
The 76-minute film sees Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King in charge of the annual celebrations in his native Hallowe'en Town, lose motivation to do the same thing year after year. Stumbling across the neighbouring Christmas Town one evening, he attempts to introduce his old friends to his finding of presents, decorating trees and Santa Claus ... only for them to taint his explanations with their Hallowe'en-saturated imaginations. In the end, he gives them what they want to hear to the detriment of the habitants of Christmas Town, Santa Claus and Jack himself.
Originally intended as a 30-minute Christmas TV special or a short film adaptation of a three-page poem written by Tim Burton, executives felt it was "too weird" for Disney to make and so it was shelved. After Burton's successes with Beetlejuice and Batman, the studio agreed to make it into a feature-length stop motion with Henry Sellick directing given Burton's commitments to the new Batman Returns at the time. At one stage, the team knew the story but not in its entirety - all eleven songs in the film were written before a word of the screenplay was on the page.
Once you say it's a Tim Burton film, people know what to expect - a loner main character, twisted architecture and bizarre character design. All of the above are in abundance in a film some might say this is the most Tim Burton film ever made, despite him not being in the director's chair; he's credited as a producer instead. It's hard not to think of The Nightmare Before Christmas as the most surreal of Burton's films given the almost boundless potential afforded to the production team of building a miniature world with all the gravity-defying structures and unfeasible character design instead of creating it all at a 1:1 scale.
It's not going to be a film for everyone (I showed it to people at uni and most of them hated it) but it's built a cult following in the 24 years since it came out to give it the wider audience it never had upon its initial limited release. One gripe is that some of the lyrics in the slower songs are thrown in to get the point across rather than making it a song that flows. That said, it's still a film guaranteed to put a smile on your face from the first viewing for the story to the latest for the amazingly attentive details hidden in the corners of every frame.
Best Quote: "Just because I cannot see it, doesn't mean I can't believe it!"