What’s This? The Nightmare Before Christmas Turns 25

The Nightmare Before Christmas premiered in theaters 25 years ago this month. Although it was considered a successful film at the time (grossing roughly $50 Million in 1993) it wasn’t exactly a blockbuster smash. It was quirky, unique and amazingly creative. Twenty five years later, it still is. Today’s post celebrates this groundbreaking film and explores a few of the reasons behind its unwavering popularity. If we’re already celebrating Halloween and Christmas at the same time, we might as well throw in a little birthday fun too, right?

Cast

Perhaps part of the reason The Nightmare Before Christmas has remained so popular for so long is due to the film’s amazing cast. It really is an extraordinary collection of actors, many of which starred in other projects that achieved cult status as well. For example, Chris Sarandon provides the speaking voice of Jack Skellington. Sarandon appears in dozens of other films but claims a place in my mind as Prince Humperdink from The Princess Bride. Catherine O’Hara lends her voice to Sally. She too appeared in tons of films, but in terms of cult favorites you probably know her best from Beetlejuice.

One more example is William Hickey who plays the Evil Scientist responsible for bringing Sally to life. Hickey has an impressive list of film credits too, but I tend to link him most frequently with Uncle Lewis in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. (“BLESS-ing!”)

Overall it’s hard to imagine the film with a different cast of voice actors, although arguably, it’s only one of several qualities that make the film a continued success.

Story

Another reason the movie is such a success is the story itself. The Nightmare Before Christmas is based on a poem and related concept sketches crafted by Tim Burton in the 1980s. In fact the official title of the film is Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas. Burton has explained over the years that the idea for the poem (and film!) first came to him while watching an employee swap out Halloween merchandise for Christmas offerings in a retail store window. The contrast between scary Halloween images and the bright and cheerful Christmas ones inspired him. He also admits his childhood affection for holiday classics like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and The Grinch Who Stole Christmas influenced his vision.

The basic story revolves around Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King and master Halloween party-planner in Halloween Town. Jack gets a little bored with the same routine every year and longs for something more fulfilling. This desire motivates him to travel to a different holiday town, where he uncovers the magic of Christmas. The rest of the movie involves Jack wanting to capture a little of that Christmas magic at home. This disappoints the villain of the film (Oogie Boogie) and concerns his lady friend (Sally). Drama ensues.

Of course there are other facets to the story, but that’s the basic premise. The result is a completely original film that still feels unique today.

Stop Motion

Although Burton wrote the original poem on which the movie is based, The Nightmare Before Christmas was directed by Henry Selick. Selick and Burton both worked as animators at Disney prior to collaborating on The Nightmare Before Christmas. They’ve also teamed up on other films since then, most notably James and the Giant Peach and Coraline. They clearly aren’t the same person, but they certainly share a similar and unique artistic point of view. Selick jokes in the documentary included with the DVD version of the film that he is “…from the same planet as Tim.”

Selick must be an incredibly patient person to complete an entire movie like The Nightmare Before Christmas with stop-motion animation. As the name suggests, stop-motion animation requires animators to craft characters into a position, shoot one frame of film, then modify the characters ever so slightly before taking the next photo. One second of film requires 24 frames. It literally takes thousands of hours and a ridiculous amount of materials. According to The Disney Book, Selick created more than 230 sets and 227 animated characters in a 40,000 square foot studio to shoot the movie. The animators also made more than 800 Jack Skellington heads to provide the necessary sizes and emotional expressions of his character in the film.

Of course it’s not just about the stop motion, the artists also added animated snow, smoke, shadows and fire on top of all of the puppets and elaborately built sets. It took more than 100 artists over three years to complete the film.

The result is nothing short of extraordinary. Other stop-motion animated films have arrived on the scene since, but The Nightmare Before Christmas remains the benchmark. The fact that the film still looks remarkable 25 years later, is an even greater testament to Selick’s direction and his team’s unquestionable talent.

Music

As if the plot, characters and visual imagery of the film weren’t unique enough, The Nightmare Before Christmas is also a musical! I’m not talking about a few songs here and there to move along the story. This is a full-blown, half-the-dialogue-is-music kind of show.  I wonder how hard it was for Tim Burton to originally pitch his (crazy?) idea to Disney? Wouldn’t you love to hear that conversation replayed today?

Maybe it’s just me.

Yet somehow crafting the film around music totally works. In fact, that’s exactly what they did. Much of the music for the film was written before the final script was even in place.

Danny Elfman is the master behind the music in The Nightmare Before Christmas. He wrote all of the songs and performed the ones sung by Jack Skellington too. Elfman has teamed up with Tim Burton on numerous films over the years, including Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands. He’s also responsible for the catchy theme of the cult-favorite Simpsons TV show.

My favorite song from the film, and I’m certainly not alone in this opinion, is What’s This? Jack Skellington sings the catchy song after he first stumbles into Christmas Town and starts uncovering the holiday’s charms. It’s frequently parodied around my household, mostly for my own amusement. (What’s This? What’s This? Your dirty socks again!) My family members don’t always enjoy my nagging parental advice delivered by song, but it certainly makes the effort more fun for me.

You should totally try it.

Extra points for rhyming.

Other memorable songs include This is Halloween, which is sung by a cast of characters to open the film, and Oogie Boogie’s Song, delivered perfectly by the talented Ken Page.

I could go on about the music, but I better get to the final point before you stop reading and go watch the movie again for yourself.

Satire

So maybe another reason the film achieved cult status is its never-ending satire.

The Mayor of Halloween Town, for example, literally has two faces. It’s a not-so-subtle slam on the perceived hypocrisy of politicians. He also quips lines such as “I’m only an elected official. I can’t make a decision by myself.”

Of course some of the satire is dark too. There are a lot of references to mocking Christmas and trying to add ugliness to the otherwise cheerful holiday. Toys are manipulated to make children cry. Santa Claus is kidnapped. “Haven’t you heard of peace on earth and good will toward men?” Santa Claus asks Oogie Boogie’s three young assistants. “NO!” is the cheerful reply from Lock, Shock and Barrel as they continue their mistreatment of the jolly character.

There are themes of Christmas becoming too commercial and happiness being a little too, well, annoying. It also gently mocks our culture’s tendency to merge Halloween into Christmas with only a modest pause for Thanksgiving in-between. I find this aspect of the film even more interesting today, since the film has greatly benefitted from the very themes it seems to mock. I don’t have the figures, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the income from The Nightmare Before Christmas merchandise now far exceeds original ticket sales. The movie has also helped further blur the lines between the Halloween and Christmas seasons, albeit unintentionally.

The Nightmare Before Christmas

I can’t imagine someone watching The Nightmare Before Christmas in 1993 would expect to find new Jack Skellington socks hanging in the check-out aisle of the grocery store in 2018. When you think about it that way, the film’s longevity truly is remarkable. Yes, it has an incredible cast, soundtrack, story and look. But this isn’t a classic Disney film in the sense of Snow White or Cinderella. It’s a dark, satirical film that somehow connected with a small core audience and grew into the tremendous cult classic film that is today.

Oh, and it helps that it’s a holiday movie you can watch three months out of the year instead of just one.

Add a little (Jack) magic to your world!