The Nightmare Before Christmas

The Nightmare Before Christmas, American stop-motion animated musical film released in 1993, directed by Henry Selick and produced by Tim Burton and Denise Di Novi, with a musical score by Danny Elfman. It follows the exploits of Jack Skellington as he grows weary of his yearly duties to put on Halloween and discovers (and subsequently tries to take over) Christmas. Produced by the Walt Disney Company, it was released under the studio’s more mature production label Touchstone Pictures, as it struck a darker tone than most other Disney movies. The film received mixed reviews, but it was nominated in 1994 for the Academy Award for best visual effects. Although the initial release grossed a modest $50 million at the domestic box office, the film would go on to gain a cult following.

Voice cast

The cast of The Nightmare Before Christmas includes:

• Danny Elfman as Jack Skellington (singing voice), Barrel, and Clown with the Tear Away Face
• Chris Sarandon as Jack Skellington (speaking voice)
• Catherine O’Hara as Sally and Shock
• William Hickey as the evil scientist Dr. Finkelstein
• Glenn Shadix as Mayor
• Paul Reubens as Lock
• Ken Page as Oogie Boogie
• Ed Ivory as Santa

Plot

After putting on yet another successful Halloween celebration, Jack Skellington, the skeletal Pumpkin King of Halloween Town, has grown tired of doing the same thing every year. He wanders into the woods surrounding the town and stumbles upon a group of trees, each with a door leading to another holiday-themed world. He falls through the door to Christmas Town and is immediately entranced by the snow, lights, and lack of frightening things.

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When Jack returns to Halloween Town, he leads the ghoulish townspeople in attempting to recreate Christmas. Sally, a ragdoll who is in love with Jack and who was brought to life by the local evil scientist Dr. Finkelstein, tries to warn him that his plan will end in disaster. Jack ignores her warnings, instead asking her to make him a Santa Claus suit, and sends the mischievous trick-or-treaters Lock, Shock, and Barrel to kidnap the real Santa.

The three succeed in their task of bringing Santa to Halloween Town, where Jack announces that he will be taking care of delivering Christmas presents that year. Jack requests that Lock, Shock, and Barrel keep Santa Claus safe, but they instead give him to the villainous Oogie Boogie, a bogeyman whose sackcloth body is filled with bugs. Jack leaves to deliver presents while Sally tries to rescue Santa on her own, becoming Oogie’s prisoner herself.

Despite Jack’s best efforts to bring Christmas cheer to the world, his gifts horrify the populace. Authorities are contacted, and the military shoots Jack and his sleigh out of the sky. He realizes that Halloween celebrations are where his talents lie, and his attempt at recreating Christmas has given him a new passion for Halloween. He returns to Halloween Town and defeats Oogie Boogie, saving Santa Claus and Sally. Santa hurries away to save Christmas after admonishing Jack for not listening to Sally.

The town celebrates the return of the Pumpkin King, and Jack and Sally confess their love for each other.

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Development and production

The Nightmare Before Christmas began as a poem written by Tim Burton while working for Walt Disney Animation Studios in the early 1980s. Burton drew a few of the characters, thinking he might adapt it to a visual medium with Disney, considering a variety of options, such as a television special, film, or children’s book. However, the project was shelved, as he later wrote, for being “too weird for Disney.” Burton was later fired from Disney after his short film “Frankenweenie” (not to be confused with Burton’s 2012 feature-length version of the same story) failed to impress the company.

After Burton’s success in the late 1980s with films such as Beetlejuice (1988) and Batman (1989), however, the Disney Company gave the filmmaker another chance. In 1991 it was announced that he would be returning to Disney to make The Nightmare Before Christmas. Because of Burton’s commitment to Warner Brothers to direct Batman Returns, the sequel to his 1989 film about the eponymous superhero, and his unfamiliarity with stop-motion animation, the direction of The Nightmare Before Christmas was handed over to his former Disney colleague Henry Selick. In the process of making the movie, Selick and his team of some 120 people created more than 200 physical models, which were meticulously positioned and photographed, creating the still frames that provided the basis for the animation. The final cut of the movie used about 109,440 of these frames during its 76-minute run time.

The music for the film was composed by Burton’s longtime collaborator and friend Danny Elfman. Elfman would later describe the process of creating songs for The Nightmare Before Christmas as “really quick and simple” as Burton had “provided all the imagery [Elfman] needed to get inspired,” and lines written by Burton made their way into Elfman’s final lyrics.

Nightmare in other media

Since the film’s release, it has been featured in a number of other pieces of media. The mid-2000s saw two video games based on the movie: The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie’s Revenge was released for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox in 2004, and The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Pumpkin King was released the following year for Game Boy Advance. Additionally, Halloween Town is a major setting in multiple Kingdom Hearts games. Several novels and comics have been made in the setting, including the comic book series Zero’s Journey, which follows Jack’s ghostly dog, Zero, as he tries to find his way home from Christmas Town, and the Pumpkin Queen series of novels, which follows Sally as she adapts to her new role as Pumpkin Queen after marrying Jack.