Taglines: A ghoulish tale with wicked humour & stunning animation.
The Nightmare Before Christmas movie storyline. This stop-motion animated fable was a big hit when it was released — not only at the box office, but critically. It was praised for its stunning originality and for the excellence of its execution. In addition, it was praised for being a completely absorbing fable that both grownups and children can enjoy, so long as the children are able to its handle scary bits (beginning perhaps at age seven or eight). In the story,
Jack Skellington (voice of Chris Sarandon) is the Pumpkin King of Halloweentown, a realm of reality where the inhabitants make it their life’s work to scare humans on Halloween. He’s good at his work, and is very popular around town, but it all bores him. In a funk one day, he wanders into a wood where every tree is the doorway to realms serving one or another human holiday, and falls through the doorway into Christmas.
There, he sees scenes of such glee and good will that he is overwhelmed. He returns to Halloweentown with the inspiration to persuade his fellow citizens to kidnap Santa and do Christmas in their own Halloweentown way — complete with snakes and shrunken heads. Despite strong arguments against this project by Jack’s otherwise loyal girlfriend, Sally (voice of Catherine O’Hara), Santa (voice of Edward Ivory) is duly captured, and the townspeople prepare a very special Christmas for everyone. Jack is excited about the new plan, and at first doesn’t notice that Sally isn’t around much anymore.
Meanwhile, Oogie Boogie (voice of Ken Page), a sinister opponent of Jack’s, has re-kidnapped Santa and has captured Sally as well. Since Sally is the true love of Jack’s life and (he eventually realizes) the only one who can be relied upon to tell him the truth in every circumstance, a confrontation with Oogie Boogie becomes inevitable. In addition to being a monumental work of animation (it took over 120 animators and many more technicians more than two years to film it), this show features ten very appropriate musical numbers by composer Danny Elfman, who also supplies Jack’s singing voice.
The Nightmare Before Christmas (also known as Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas) is a 1993 American stop-motion animated dark fantasy musical film directed by Henry Selick, and produced and conceived by Tim Burton. It tells the story of Jack Skellington, a resident from “Halloween Town” who stumbles through a portal to “Christmas Town” and decides to celebrate the holiday, with some dastardly and comical consequences. Danny Elfman wrote the songs and score, and provided the singing voice of Jack. The principal voice cast also includes Chris Sarandon, Catherine O’Hara, William Hickey, Ken Page, Paul Reubens and Glenn Shadix.
The Nightmare Before Christmas originated in a poem written by Tim Burton in 1982, while he was working as an animator at Walt Disney Feature Animation. With the success of Vincent in the same year, Walt Disney Studios began to consider developing The Nightmare Before Christmas as either a short film or 30-minute television special. Over the years, Burton’s thoughts regularly returned to the project, and in 1990, he made a development deal with Disney. Production started in July 1991 in San Francisco; Disney released the film through its Touchstone Pictures banner because the studio believed the film would be “too dark and scary for kids”.
The film was met with both critical and financial success, grossing over $76 million during its initial run. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, a first for an animated film. The film has since been reissued by Walt Disney Pictures, and was re-released annually in Disney Digital 3-D from 2006 until 2009, making it the first stop-motion animated feature to be entirely converted to 3D.
The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
Directed by: Henry Selick
Starring: Danny Elfman, Chris Sarandon, Catherine O’Hara, William Hickey, Glenn Shadix, Paul Reubens, Ken Page, Ed Ivory, Susan McBride, Carmen Twillie, Mia Brown
Screenplay by: Caroline Thompson, Tim Burton
Production Design by:
Cinematography by: Pete Kozachik
Film Editing by: Stan Webb
Art Direction by: Deane Taylor
Music by: Danny Elfman
MPAA Rating: PG for some scary images.
Distributed by: Buena Vista Pictures
Release Date: October 29, 1993
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