Boys and girls of every age, would you like to see something strange?
Come with us and you will see this our town of Halloween
No movie fits the entire holiday season quite like The Nightmare Before Christmas. Perhaps because of the deconstruction of the holidays through their own interconnected “towns,” perhaps the interconnection of Halloween and Christmas, perhaps because the entirety of the Hallow-Thanks-Channuakk-Christma-season is so silly and sappy that it can best be summed up by an animated musical.
But mostly because it is symptomatic of our postmodern love/hate relationships with the fall holidays. We tire of what we view as mundane because we’ve done it over and over. Jack Skellngton, the Pumpkin King at the top of his game, just wants to give it up. Until he finds Christmas and begins to find all sorts of new feels. His joy and wonder of finding something new is the same sort of feeling I get as I watch this every year.
The plot is simple: Jack finds Christmas, wants to replicate it, kidnaps Sandy Claus, tries to do Christmas his way, almost destroys Christmas, saves Santa from the evil Oogie Boogie, Santa fixes everything. Filmed with stop-motion animation, and produced by Tim Burton, whose touches are all over the film.
So, with that, here’s 13 things (in no particular order) we love about The Nightmare Before Christmas.
13. Danny Elfman
If there’s one thing that really makes this film, it’s the music. There have been other stop-motion films done by Disney (James and the Giant Peach) and Tim Burton (Corpse Bride, Frankenweenie) but none of them have music written by the god of Oingo Boingo, Danny Elfman. Also lending his voice as the singing voice of Jack Skellington and one of the trick-or-treaters (more on this in a minute), his fingerprints are all over this.
And he’s simply irreplaceable.
And so with Oingo Boingo, in my mind, being almost synonymous with Halloween, this is the perfect match. Like this, fer instance:
And while Elfman has done most of Tim Burton’s music scoring, there are very few other scores which really allow him to let the Boingo roll (Pee Wee’s Big Adventure is a notable exception). Elfman even falls into using some “Boingo-isms” such as “tender lumplings” in his lyrics, an added Christmas surprise to his fans without ever feeling like fanservice.
12. Sally
For so many people, Sally is the character they identify with the most. A little cloistered, a little repressed, and super, super awkward, especially around the object of their affection, you can see why Sally is sympatico with so many young geeks. For my young daughter who just watched this with me a few weeks ago for her first time, Sally was who she immediately cared about.
Plus, “Sally’s Song” is such an important theme and motif in the film. It shows up half a dozen times in the film, including the during the coda where Jack tells Sally how he feels about her. Awwwww. . .
You can see why it’s a popular song to cover by female artists, from Fiona Apple to Amy Lee.
But my favorite piece (tee hee) of Sally is when she runs away from Dr. Finkelstein by undoing her arm, both allowing her to escape, and her disembodied arm to pound on the doctor’s metal cranium. And then later, when reunited, it waves at her. Pure genius. Oh Sally, we love you.
11. The Mayor
“Jack, please, I’m only an elected official here, I can’t make decisions by myself!”
How perfect is it to have the mayor of Halloweentown, first of all, not really be the one in charge and merely glomming on the success of Jack, but also given two faces. Tim Burton may have cemented my political cynicism at a young age with this alone.
10. Kidnap the Sandy Claws
There is no song more manic, and more purely Boingo, in the entire score. We get a double dose of Elfman, joined by Paul Ruebens and Catherine O’Hara (also doubling up here with her role as Sally) as the three trick or treaters Lock, Shock, and Barrel. But as they manically start singing and scheming to kidnap Santa, we can’t help but sing along: La la la la la la, lalalalala!
What also makes this song so perfect is the bickering between the kids, which anyone who has spent time around kids sugared up on candy know is exactly what you get.
9. Making Christmas
Nowhere else do we start to see just how badly Jack’s plan is unravelling as we see Halloweentown trying to make Christmas presents.
“Won’t they be impressed, I am a genius! See how I transform this old rat Into a most delightful hat!”
“My compliments from me to you on this your most intriguing hat. Consider though this substitute, a bat in place of this old rat!
No, no, no, now that’s all wrong– this thing will never make a present! It’s been dead for much too long! Try something fresher, something pleasant!”
Just hilarious and fun, it’s also the song I find myself singing most often while going shopping or wrapping gifts for people.
8. This guy
He’s only got one line, but he almost steals the whole movie.
7. The clown with the tearaway face
“I am the clown with the tearaway face, here in a flash and gone without a trace.”
Tim Burton, did you try to make the most frightening thing ever? If so, congratulations. Mission Accomplished.
6. Disney Infinity
For those of us playing the new crack cocaine, er. . .video game, we recently got a Jack Skellington figure released. He is instantly the most fun character to play with in the entire game, despite being confined only to the ToyBox area at this time (we can dream of a Halloweentown set, can’t we? We went there in Kingdom Hearts!).
Both with a mean scare that puts Sully and Randall to shame and the most devastating missle attack of anyone in the game so far (Pumpkin bombs! Who is this guy, the Green Goblin?!?) he is super at clearing out big groups of enemies. Oh, speaking of, have you tried his challenge level in the ToyBox? But dayum, son! About the toughest ever.
But super fun, and we get to hear all the Nightmare Before Christmas music while we play with him.
Also fun? Make him drive Mickey’s car. Well, any car. Those long legs look hilarious.
It should be noted that the original voice for Jack, Chris Sarandon (yes, Prince Humperdinck), returns to voice him for this game. It’s a detail that makes this so perfect.
5. Zero
Awwww, a cute little ghost dog! And instead of being like an actual dog, he has the head of a dog and then it looks like the rest of his body is one of those Charlie Brown ghost costumes made from a sheet (or I guess Bettlejuice is more appropriate, no?). I love that Zero plays fetch with one of Jack’s finger bones. I also love that he shows up at the end to play Rudolph with his shiny nose at the end.
Zero didn’t have to be in this movie. Why does the Pumpkin King need a pet dog? But he’s one of those little details that is exactly like all the other details of this film without which it wouldn’t be so perfect.
4. This is Halloween
Why does everyone play “The Monster Mash” at Halloween? That song stinks. This is where it’s at.
We go through dozens of frightening images, and at the same time the song serves as the perfect exposition and sets the mood for the entire film. Thus, Nightmare Before Christmas is one of those films where you can tell someone, “Watch the first five minutes. And if you don’t like it, you’re not going to like it. And if you love it, you’re in for a treat.”
“That’s our job, but we’re not mean in this town of Halloween.”
What a perfect setup. All of those things that go bump in the night? This is just what they do. They’re pretty nice people. Like the effeminite vampires. Or the chest-bumping monsters.
Plus, the song is instantly singable and fun.
3. Jack Skellington
It all comes back to Jack. Our protagonist, our window into this world. Jack is a completely relatable character, despite being a 6 1/2 foot tall skeleton. Why? It’s the ennui.
Just like so many of us, Jack feels stuck in a rut. Call it mid-life crisis, the “joys” of being a teenager, or just the massive crapitude that modern life can often bring us. But Jack’s problems are very specific. Despite being at the top of his game and universally beloved, something is missing.
And since he is dead, he can take off his head to recite Shakespearean quotation!
This is both a brilliant piece of cinema and writing– conflating Jack’s existential rut with the melancholy of the most depressed character in all of literature, Hamlet. Brilliant move.
But Jack isn’t all depressed. His joy at finding Christmas, and then his inability to explain it to his Halloweentown cohorts are also enjoyable. He’s also not exactly bright, mistaking everyone’s attacks on him at Christmas as being celebratory, or trusting that Oogie Boogie wouldn’t get his hands on Santa. Oh well, all part of the journey, and it’s why we love Jack.
Also, mad props to both Chris Sarandon and Danny Elfman (both of whom we mentioned above) for bringing life to this undead character. A great feat of vocal work on their parts.
2. (Weird) Science!
Somehow everything in Halloweentown, at least when it comes to Jack, revolves around science. During the “Something’s Up With Jack” musical number, Jack is trying to figure out what makes Christmas so special. . .by grinding things up into powders, burning them, writing equations, and so on. Like you do.
Jack and Dr. Finkelstein both take a stange but analytical approach to everything (but that doesn’t keep the good doctor from getting drugged by Sally all the time? You think he’d be smarter. . . ) with great results. It’s a silly and fun take on the holidays, since “Christmas cheer” is quite literally one of those unquantifiable entities. But the attempts to arrive at it are hilarious and fun.
1. What’s This?
In the strangest (and necessary) tonal shift, we suddenly move into Christmastown, and see just how different things are between Halloween and Christmas towns.
It’s manic but completely organic to the story. If you’d never seen snow, Christmas, etc, and had lived your whole life as Halloween, how would you react to it?
Like that, most likely. And it’s a great rundown of everything that can make the season fun: snow, music, treats, etc. And little lines like “There’s children throwing snowballs instead of throwing heads” just absolutely sells it.
The Nightmare Before Christmas is a holiday classic from October to December. . .and really any time of year.
It’s available streaming now on Netflix Instant Watch, but this really is one you should own for your home collection.