The Nightmare Before Christmas

Jack Skellington (speaking voice by Chris Sarandon, singing voice by Danny Elfman) is the “pumpkin king” of Halloweentown, the man responsible for bringing the very best in the ghastly and the morbid to the eager townspeople. Jack has grown weary of his job, though; He discovers a doorway to Christmasland, where Santa Claus prepares for his own yearly blowout. Jack decides to co-opt Christmas for his own purposes, over the objections of stitched-together Sally (Catherine O’Hara), who’s infatuated with him.
“The Nightmare Before Christmas” is a Tim Burton film in the sense that the story, its world and its look first took shape in Burton’s mind, and he supervised their filming. It is a visual splendor. Done on the cheap, this could have been a gimmicky, unsatisfying experience, but, as the result of considerable time and effort, it is an unqualified success. All of the figures move smoothly and naturally, and the attention to detail is exquisite. We are given a group of cleverly-fashioned characters that look like refugees from Edward Gorey’s sketchbook.
The songs by Danny Elfman are fun, too, a couple of them using lyrics so clever they could be updated from Gilbert & Sullivan. And the choreography, liberated from gravity and reality, has an energy of its own, as when the furniture, the architecture and the very landscape itself gets into the act.
“The Nightmare Before Christmas” is just short enough not to wear out its welcome and just long enough to brushstroke its pagan vs. In short, it does what it intends to: entertain.