The Pumpkin King that stole Christmas...

Rating: 7/10 (4 May 2007)

Since Tim Burton is the very definition of the word "weird", it's no surprise to me that THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE Christmas (which I resisted seeing up until now), is richly imaginative and entertaining in the way it puts a special twist on the holiday spirit of Halloween and Christmas.
Instead of the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, we have The Pumpkin King (Jack) bringing horror to the Yuletide holidays and kiddies everywhere by riding Santa's sleigh and depositing horrific toys to frighten kids in a manner usually reserved for Halloween. Of course, in the end, the real Santa is allowed to reappear (after being held hostage) and allowed to bring his special brand of cheer to a world momentarily deprived of Santa and his toys.
It's all richly dark and scary (for kids), imaginative, and visually stunning with so much to watch at any given moment that it becomes almost a strain on the eyes to follow all the cleverness accurately without a pause for breath. In other words, it's what I would call a very "busy" film, but certainly an enjoyable one if you're in the mood for quality animation of this kind (stop-motion models).
All I can say is the Disney studios never released anything remotely like this sort of dark fantasy when I was a kid, when everything was geared more to the lighter side with darkness only rearing up in the form of witches or dragons--and the songs were simple, catchy tunes that people could sing afterwards. That, for me, is the big drawback here. Danny Elfman's songs are devoid of any special sort of charm and certainly can't be called memorable. They work within the context of this story, but not apart from it.
Nevertheless, this is undoubtedly a richly imaginative piece of animated art and well worth viewing whether young or old.