A Fun Halloween Tale--But Basically a Musical

Rating: 7/10 (15 November 2016)

I had never seen "The Nightmare Before Christmas" until this year (2016). It came out while I was in high school, and I think at the time I was going through a "I'm too old for cartoons and kids movies" phase. I'd been wanting to see it for several years now, but every year Halloween would come and go and I would miss it.
In fact, that's one important thing to know about this movie. Before I saw it, I always wondered if it was better to watch at Halloween or at Christmas. I'd now answer that question with a definite "Halloween". The movie is about a character from a village that is oriented around a Halloween theme who wanders off one day and discovers a series of portals to other holiday-themed towns. This takes him to Christmas-town, where he decides he wants to bring Christmas back to Halloween-town. But, before it's all said and done, he discovers that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, and that the holidays don't mix well. That being the case, the movie has a lot more Halloween-oriented characters than Christmas-oriented ones, so definitely watch this during the former season.
Another thing you might want to know going into this movie so that you'll get the most appreciation out of it is that it is in fact NOT an animated film. Or at least it's not a cartoon or a computer animation. Rather, it's stop motion. All of the scenes in the movie were shot on site, with props that were used to make the set. Taking that into consideration certainly adds to the appeal of the movie, and it really is quite a feat for filmmaking.
As for the story and the plot of the film, it's not terrible. Indeed, the plot itself is somewhat becoming and certainly novel. However, the movie relies heavily on music and song, making it basically a musical film. Musicals are my least favorite genre of movie (even though I realize it's a very popular thing to do for a kids movie), and so it was hard for me to get into this film.
Still, all things said and done, I have to give this movie a strong 7/10 stars. It's certainly a fun, well made film. Just not in the upper echelons of my favorites is all.