Tim Burton Mashes Holidays In The Nightmare Before Christmas

More than ten years ago, Tim Burton showed us The Nightmare Before Christmas. It's a mash-up, it's a hodgepodge, it's a mess, and it's amazing. I never saw it in the theater, but I wish that I had.

The Nightmare Before Christmas is the story of Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King, who's the leader of Halloweentown, and he is to Halloween, what Santa Claus is to Christmas. The movie begins the morning after another amazingly successful evening if frightful Halloween adventures that Jack brought to the world of the living, and his minions are congratulating him. He accepts the praise of his constituents, who include a faceless clown, vampires, witches, dead and undead, as well as a mayor with both a deviously happy face and an evil face.

After the ceremony, he retreats by himself to skulk, and sort through his thoughts. He's the absolute best at what he does, but he's not happy. It's then that he stumbles upon another place, and it's Christmastown. He sees the holiday lights and cheer, and the joy in their faces. This gives him the idea that there's more to life than scaring, and he decides Halloween is not the only holiday he'll be handling from now on.

The movie is actually a musical, and although I'm not usually a fan of this type of thing, it's this that makes it all worth while. Take for example, what Jack says, while appreciating Christmastown, "There's children throwing snowballs, instead of throwing heads, They're busy building toys, and absolutely no one's dead!"

And what really sets things into motion, is Jack's strange interpretations of how Christmas should be handled. He initially explains Christmas as being jolly, but then later, he uses the following to describe old St. Nick. "And on a dark cold night, under full moonlight, he flies into the fog like a vulture in the sky! And they call him, Sandy... Clawssss...!"

All quotes came from IMDB

The truth, however, is the magic of this movie is in the visuals. It's creative, and stunning, and just plain weird. The music is silly, from the song by the kids, Lock, Shock and Barrel, to the one sung by the chief boogeyman villain, Oogie-Boogie. It's visually stunning, and creative on every level.

As weird as this movie may seem, this is a family movie, and kids will love this more than adults. The movie originally hit theaters on October 29, 1993, and ran all the way through to Christmas, in some areas. It's hard to classify this as either a Halloween or a Christmas movie, but one thing is for certain, it is an amazing journey from start to finish. So, why not check it out today.