Visually enchanting, musically entertaining, and way, WAY too memorable...

Rating: 7/10 (14 February 2005)

Anyone who is remotely acquainted with me has probably heard me whine that some movie I saw - and I see a lot of them - just wasn't memorable enough, that I'd forget it in a few years. I saw "The Nightmare Before Christmas" for the first time at the age of three. Nearly twelve years later, I began dating a young man who was obsessed with it, and I saw it again. Between these two time periods, I remembered the movie far more clearly than I would have liked. A movie isn't worth seeing if you aren't going to remember it, but this one was so bizarre, it stuck out in my memory a bit TOO much.
Jack Skellington (Danny Elfman and Chris Sarandon) is a...thing...that is eight or perhaps ten feet tall and yet appears to weigh about the same as the average school textbook. He's also the "Pumpkin King" of a place called Halloweentown, where the distinguishing feature of the residents is that they all look like they recently walked through the mosh pit at Lollapalooza. It is not uncommon to see heads flying around without their bodies or Frankenstein-like creations running around loose or anything out of your childhood nightmares. No wonder Jack is kind of depressed. So when he quite by accident stumbles upon a place called Christmastown, and decides that he would like to bring some Christmas spirit to his homeland, things get a little messy. For one thing, his idea of Christmas cheer is to have Santa Claus kidnapped by another...thing...called Oogie Boogie (Ken Page) and pose as (a rather anorexic) Saint Nick himself. Are you scratching your head yet? You're not alone. There are...things...in Halloweentown which literally scratch their brains.
Other main...things (characters)...include Sally (Catherine O'Hara), a Rocky Horror-or-Frankenstein-style creation of a mad scientist who is the object of Jack's romantic affections (and vice-versa); Lock, Shock, and Barrel (Pee-wee Herman, Catherine O'Hara, and Danny Elfman) (Jerry Thorpe fans are picketing outside), three evil little sidekicks who do a good deal of eyebrow-raising, and the Evil Scientist (original, huh? I needed that) who created Sally in the first place. And Santa Claus. But that poor man's been tortured enough.
The music is catchy and well-written, the animation is stellar, and the cast dovetails perfectly with the roles. Tim Burton has proved time and time again that he's quite an original director. But some stories are just too weird to get out of the campfire circle, and this might be one of them. Most people I know over the age of thirty-five will curl up like boiled shrimp at the mere mention of "The Nightmare Before Christmas." Therefore, while I myself thought it was an entertaining piece of film, I'm not sure it's fit for the public at large. There are some things the world just isn't ready for. Mr. Burton, I commend you. You are way before your time.
Grade: B