Lack of good storyline.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

An ambitious stop motion film which sees Jack the Pumpkin King journey from his native Hallowe'en Town to the neighbouring Christmas Town. When he attempts to bring the joy of the festive season to his horror-happy friends, they love it ... only because they've got the wrong end of the stick.The 76-minute film sees Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King in charge of the annual celebrations in his native Hallowe'en Town, lose motivation to do the same thing year after year. Stumbling across the neighbouring Christmas Town one evening, he attempts to introduce his old friends to his finding of presents, decorating trees and Santa Claus ... only for them to taint his explanations with their Hallowe'en-saturated imaginations. In the end, he gives them what they want to hear to the detriment of the habitants of Christmas Town, Santa Claus and Jack himself.Originally intended as a 30-minute Christmas TV special or a short film adaptation of a three-page poem written by Tim Burton, executives felt it was "too weird" for Disney to make and so it was shelved. After Burton's successes with Beetlejuice and Batman, the studio agreed to make it into a feature-length stop motion with Henry Sellick directing given Burton's commitments to the new Batman Returns at the time. At one stage, the team knew the story but not in its entirety - all eleven songs in the film were written before a word of the screenplay was on the page.Once you say it's a Tim Burton film, people know what to expect - a loner main character, twisted architecture and bizarre character design. All of the above are in abundance in a film some might say this is the most Tim Burton film ever made, despite him not being in the director's chair; he's credited as a producer instead. It's hard not to think of The Nightmare Before Christmas as the most surreal of Burton's films given the almost boundless potential afforded to the production team of building a miniature world with all the gravity-defying structures and unfeasible character design instead of creating it all at a 1:1 scale.It's not going to be a film for everyone (I showed it to people at uni and most of them hated it) but it's built a cult following in the 24 years since it came out to give it the wider audience it never had upon its initial limited release. One gripe is that some of the lyrics in the slower songs are thrown in to get the point across rather than making it a song that flows. That said, it's still a film guaranteed to put a smile on your face from the first viewing for the story to the latest for the amazingly attentive details hidden in the corners of every frame.Best Quote: "Just because I cannot see it, doesn't mean I can't believe it!"

Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas follows the story of Jack Skellington (voiced by Danny Elfman and Chris Sarandon) as he becomes disillusioned with his role as the Pumpkin King and wants more out of life. This is a tale that everyone can understand in that many times throughout life, people are simply not as satisfied with where they are. Jack is joined by the rest of Halloweentown in his quest to introduce Christmas to the residents. The residents blindly follow Jack's lead with the exception of Sally (voiced by Catherine O'Hara). Throughout the film, Sally tries to get Jack to follow his normal path, as Christmas is already being handled by the residents of Christmastown. Each character in Christmas town is themed after a different aspect of fear, and they tend to blend together well. As fishmen, vampires, and even a clown with a tear away face group up, each has their own part to play in the film. Because this is a claymation style musical, music and sound is everything to the plot, and it is done in a way that gets the songs stuck in your head so that you will find yourself singing along during any viewing after the first. This is because of Danny Elfman who wrote the score. The score itself fits a Tim Burton film and likely is because they have worked together many times in the past. During The Nightmare Before Christmas, it is impossible to ignore the similarities between this and Betelgeuse not only because of the team up of Tim Burton, Danny Elfman, Catherine O'Hara, and Glen Shadix (The Mayor of HalloweenTown), but also because there are subtle nods in the animated film as well. During one scene with the main antagonist, Oogie Boogie, there are a pair of dice that landed on snake eyes. Out of the holes in the one die slithers a snake that looks remarkably like a miniature sand snake from Betelgeuse. This quick nod along with Jack dressed in a black and white pinstripe and coupled with the score that is reminiscent of Betelgeuse is enough to instantly bring back thoughts of both movies. The Nightmare Before Christmas isn't entirely without fault, however. There are times where you can visibly see the wires holding certain bats or other props in place, however the use of light is such that is tends to mask the majority of the flaws. In some cases, you have to look hard to see them, even if you are told they are there. The motif of fear is presented at the forefront, which makes sense given that the main setting is Halloweentown. This does present itself in Jack as well. Jack isn't simply discontent with his position in life, he comes off as being afraid that being the King of Halloween is all he will amount to in life. I believe that is his impetus to find a new passion. Overall, The Nightmare Before Christmas is a fun-hearted musical about a guy just trying to chase a dream. With a solid score of musical numbers and an art style that isn't often seen in cinema, The Nightmare Before Christmas is a great family movie that is fun to watch at any time of the year.

The Nightmare Before Christmas is focused around a skeleton whom everyone calls Jack the Pumpkin King, he is voiced by Chris Sarandon but sang by Danny Elfman. Jack finds that he is starting to become bored with doing the same thing every year for Halloween and wants to do something different. Jack and Zero start to wonder around and found a forest with different holidays with doors as the holiday theme, he gets dragged into the Christmas one. There he is amazed with all the different lights, sounds and everything that is different compared to his Halloween Town. Its bright, cheery and festive. They really capture everything with all the different angles they show us from him peeking into the window and seeing the elves kissing under the mistletoe, him jumping around on top of the houses, riding the carousal and finally you see from Jacks point of view then he is looking at the sign for Christmas Town. When he goes back you can feel the difference because in Christmas town it was fun and festive, lights everywhere and the moon looked brighter while lighting up the town while Halloween Town is more dark and dreary, having an overcast to make it feel dulled down. It is a stop motion animation, so the lighting is different than a motion picture, but you can still see the different lighting techniques that help make this movie stand out. They use low-key lighting and high-key lighting though the movie and this is where you can really see the difference between the towns, but they do use a lot of side lighting to instead of just a light overhang. This gives you the impression with the shadows and making it feel a bit darker.Jack does different experiments and decides that he is going to take over Christmas. Giving out different jobs to his fellow towns people on how to make Christmas better then before. He asked Santa to be brought to him, unharmed but the kids decided the best place to keep him comfortable is with Oogie Boogie. Sally, voiced by Catherine O'Hara, tries to tell Jack that what he is doing is wrong. But he doesn't listen and continues to do what he wants, making Halloween toys, and having his own costume. This leads him to ruin Christmas for everyone and being shot out of the sky. After a clear moment in the graveyard he realizes that he is The Pumpkin King and he great at being himself, not someone else. He races off to rescue Santa and Sally from Oogie Boogie, who is trying to get rid of them. Jack saves the them both and Santa tells him to not take over his holiday again and listen to Sally. Christmas was saved with Santa fixing all Jacks mistakes, and Jack is happy to be The Pumpkin King again with Sally by his side. The music scores for this movie is great and keeps the audience entertained. You have the notes becoming higher when it's an important scene or they are singing, but it mellows out into the background the rest of the time. This gives the movie a well-rounded music score with the scenes because it tells the story with the dialogue. Tim Burton has a certain feel to his movies and this is no exception. It reminds me a little of the Corpse Bride on how the lighting is in some of the scenes but its also a stop motion animation too. There is some romance to it, but it doesn't show until the end where both parties come together. They must learn and comes to terms with certain issues before they get their happily ever after to their story.

"The Nightmare Before Christmas" is an American animated musical from 1993, so this pretty short film (75 minutes) has its 25th anniversary soon and it is the first full feature film directed by Henry Selick that younger audiences today know rather for Coraline than for this one here. It was nominated for an Oscar in the visual effects category, which is a rather rare achievement for a non live-action film (lost to Jurassic Park). And composer Danny Elfman was nominated for a Golden Globe for his score. I know him very well for his composing, but I was genuinely baffled by his amazing singing voice for the main character here. Great job. The script is (to some extent) by Tim Burton and if you have seen other stuff from him, you won't be surprised one bit. So this is a film that combines horror, animation, comedy and musical and that must be a pretty unique achievement. While I don't necessarily agree with the truly high rating here on IMDb, I would still say that it was a good watch overall. The fun perspective may be in the center of it all I guess, even if without a doubt a more creepy film than Coraline for the most part for example. So horror animation indeed.As for the story, horror is always difficult to combine with the spirit of Christmas. Even the classics like Grinch stuff etc. are hardly truly scary. And most filmmakers trying to combine these two have at best delivered something that could be considered a good guilty pleasure watch, but not a truly great film. Here they came pretty close. The fact how short the film is shows at times when we see for example how the villains are depicted left me a bit unimpressed. Sally's creator Finklestein was still somewhat decent and funny most of the time, even if severely underused, but the torturer near the end was pretty much completely forgettable to me. Nonetheless, one of the film's biggest strengths is the attention to detail. There are so so many characters visible in here that we find out almost nothing about, but they are interesting on a level where they could have deserved their own movie. As for the romance part, it was okay. It felt a bit rushed at times too and I would not call it a defining animation romance, but still it worked out fine and the last shot was kinda cute.The two central characters worked out nicely too all in all. The fact that Jack may not have been too interesting in looks, was more than made up by his singing parts. I would also like to add that his affection for Christmas is interesting to me as we may see his world as scary and creepy, but it's normal for everybody who lives there. That includes the funny two-faced mayor. The abnormal aspect is getting warmth, harmony and gifts in there. The thing we see as normal. And when the worlds collide, nothing is normal anymore (the police call scene e.g.). These worlds shall not be intertwined for the sake of everybody living in them. Pay attention to how adult human's faces are never seen in here. Santa doesn't count as he's Santa and not a human. Overall, I give this film a thumbs-down. It managed for the animation genre to be an unlikely success story with an approach/subject that has little to do with what you'd expect for Christmas. In one way or another like Die Hard. What else could I add? I think that is basically all. I think the style and animation will scare some away, but if you aren't one of them, then I believe you are in for a treat. It was a good film and I recommend checking it out. A bit of a shame it took me almost a quarter of a century to finally check it out. I also think that it is worth seeing more on a big screen than a small screen, so if you haven't seen it so far, wait for 2018 and make sure you catch a viewing when it may return to theaters as a 25th anniversary tribute. In any case, see it.