In The Nightmare Before Christmas, each holiday has its own world that can be entered through a doorway in a tree. In the case of Halloween, that world is Halloween Town, the leader of which is Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King While the residents of Halloween Town love Jack, he is bored with doing the same thing year in and year out, and wants to try something new. It is while he is wandering through the woods that he stumbles upon the tree with the entrance to Christmas Town. Jack finds himself fascinated by Christmas Town and decides to take over the holiday of Christmas that year. Unfortunately, Jack and the citizens of Halloween Town don't quite grasp how to celebrate Christmas.
The origins of The Nightmare Before Christmas go back to Tim Burton's childhood. Tim Burton was lonely as a child growing up in Burbank, California. For that reason holidays were a special time for him. As he said in an October 10 1993 Los Angeles Times article, "Anytime there was Christmas or Halloween, you’d go to Thrifty’s and buy stuff and it was great. It gave you some sort of texture all of a sudden that wasn’t there before."
It was after Tim Burton had finished the stop-motion animation short "Vincent" in 1982 and he was still working at Walt Disney Feature Animation that he wrote a poem entitled "The Nightmare Before Christmas." The poem drew inspiration from his favourite animated Christmas television special from his childhood, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, as well as other classic Christmas TV specials, and the poem "A Visit From St. Nicholas," better known as "'Twas the Night Before Christmas." Tim Burton's plan at the time was to adapt the poem as television special with narration by Vincent Price. Tim Burton created storyboards for his planned television special, and with designer and sculptor Rick Heinrichs sculpted character models. Unfortunately, Disney deemed the project "too weird" and shelved it.
Fortunately, Tim Burton's career took off in the late Eighties and early Nineties, seeing success with the films Pee-Wee's Big Adventure (1985), Beetlejuice (1988), Batman (1989), and Edward Scissorhands (1990). And Tim Burton never forgot about his "Nightmare Before Christmas" project. Tim Burton made some inquiries about "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and learned that Disney still owned it. Fortunately, with Mr. Burton's success, the studio was now interested in the project.
One major hurdle Tim Burton had to overcome was that he did have other commitments. Indeed, at that point he was working on the sequel to Batman (1989), Batman Returns (1992). He was also concerned that Disney would not give him the creative freedom he wanted. A solution was found in the form of a former co-worker at Disney. Henry Selick. Mr. Selick had worked in various capacities on the films Pete's Dragon (1977), Twice Upon a Time (1983), and Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). He had also directed the stop-motion and watercolour animated short "Seepage" (1982), as well Pilsbury commercials, MTV channel ID spots, and work on MTV's show Liquid Television. Henry Selick was signed as the director of the feature film The Nightmare Before Christmas.
The screenplay for The Nightmare Before Christmas would not be created without some difficulties. Tim Burton approached author and screenwriter Michael McDowell, who had co-written the screenplay for Mr. Burton's movie Beetlejuice. Ultimately, Tim Burton and Michael McDowell would have creative differences. It was then that Tim Burton decided that The Nightmare Before Christmas should be a musical. For the lyrics and music he went to Danny Elfman, who had scored Tim Burton's movies Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Beetlejuice, and Batman (1989). Tim Burton and Danny Elfman created a rough storyline for The Nightmare Before Christmas. Eventually Caroline Thompson, who wrote the screenplay for Tim Burton's film Edward Scissorhands, wrote the screenplay for the movie.
The Nightmare Before Christmas began filming in July 1991 and ultimately took over three years to complete. The animation crew for the movie consisted of 120 animators. The crew had to construct 227 puppets for the film. The puppet for Jack Skellington himself had around 400 heads, so that nearly any emotion could be expressed. A total of 109,440 frames were taken for The Nightmare Before Christmas. In animating The Nightmare Before Christmas, a great deal was owed to stop-motion animators Ladislas Starevich, George Pal, and Ray Harryhausen. Inspiration was also taken from such illustrators as Charles Addams, Étienne Delessert, Edward Gorey, Gahan Wilson, and yet others. For the look of Halloween Town, the filmmakers drew upon German Expressionism, namely The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920). The look of Christmas Town was inspired by the work of Dr. Seuss, who wrote and illustrated the Christmas classic How the Grinch Stole Christmas!. In contrast to Halloween Town and Christmas Town, the real world was plainer and simpler.
Danny Elfman provided the singing voice of Jack Skellington, but it turned out that his speaking voice was not quite up to his singing. Chris Sarandon was then cast as Jack's speaking voice. Sally, the rag doll and Jack's love interest, was voiced by Catharine O'Hara, who had worked with Tim Burton on Beetlejuice. Glenn Shadix, who had also appeared in Beetlejuice, voiced the Mayor of Halloween Town. Paul Reubens, Pee-Wee Herman himself, played Lock, one of the trick-or-treaters who is a henchman of the villain Oogie Boogie. Joe Ranft, a fellow veteran of Disney, voiced Igor, Dr. Finkelstein's assistant. As to bogeyman Oogie Boogie and mad scientist Dr. Finklestein, they were voice by singer Ken Page and William Hickey respectively. Ken Page was a veteran of Broadway and was the original Lion in The Wiz. William Hickey had a career going back to the Fifties and had appeared in such films as Prizzi's Honor (1985) and The Name of the Rose (1986). He was well-known for his raspy voice.
Originally it was planned that The Nightmare Before Christmas would be released under Walt Disney Feature Animation. The studio eventually decided the movie would be too "dark and scary for kids," and so it was released under Touchstone Pictures instead. It was marketed as Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas. The Nightmare Before Christmas premiered on the opening day of the New York Film Festival. It went into limited release on October 13 1993 and on October 29 1993 it went into wide release.
The Nightmare Before Christmas received overwhelmingly positive reviews. Roger Ebert gave the film a thumbs up and wrote, "One of the many pleasures of Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas is that there is not a single recognizable landscape within it. Everything looks strange and haunting. Even Santa Claus would be difficult to recognize without his red-and-white uniform." Todd McCarthy in Variety also gave the film a good review, noting,"If it were a normal holiday animated film, The Nightmare Before Christmas would be an entertaining, amusing, darker-than-usual offering indicating that Disney was willing to deviate slightly from its tried-and-true family-fare formula. But the dazzling techniques employed here create a striking look that's never been seen in such a sustained form, making this a unique curio that will appeal to kids and film enthusiasts alike." The Nightmare Before Christmas was also nominated for the Oscar for Best Effects, Visual Effects.
The Nightmare Before Christmas did modestly well at the box office, earning $50 million in the United States when it was first released. With a budget of $24 million, this meant that it made a modest profit. It has since made more money through re-releases in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2020, and 2023. Of course, it has also made money through home video. It was first released by Touchstone Home Video on VHS on September 30 1994. It was released on DVD on December 2 1997. A special edition DVD was released October 3 2000. Since then it has been released on various other home media, including 4K Blu-ray on August 22 2023 in anticipation of its thirtieth anniversary.
Of course, the popularity of The Nightmare Before Christmas has meant there has been a good deal of merchandise made ever since its initial release. There have been collectable card games, video games, action figures, and other toys and games. A pop-up book was published upon the movie's release in 1993. There has since been another pop up book, calendars, a novelization, comic books, and even a cookbook. As might be expected, both Halloween and Christmas decorations inspired by The Nightmare Before Christmas have been manufactured.
The Nightmare Before Christmas became a cult film not long after its initial release. It has since gone on to become regarded as a classic. In 2008 it was ranked at no. 1 on Rotten Tomatoes' "Top 25 Best Christmas Movies" list. In 2020 USA Today placed The Nightmare Before Christmas at no. 4 on its list of the "25 Best Christmas Movies of All Time." This year Buzzfeed included it at no. 22 in their list of "The 50 Best Christmas Movies Ever, Ranked." Variety also included it in its list of "The 45 Best Christmas Movies of All Time." Confirming its status as a classic, The Nightmare Before Christmas was inducted into the the National Film Registry this year for being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant."
As to why The Nightmare Before Christmas has remained so popular through the years, much of it goes back to what my friend Brian and I agreed upon years ago: it is the one movie one can watch at either Halloween or Christmas. This makes The Nightmare Before Christmas utterly unique. It is also why the film appeals to kids and film enthusiasts alike, as Todd McCarthy pointed out in his 1993 review in Variety. Indeed, I know many horror movie fans who do not particularly care for typical holiday fare, but they love The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Of course, much of the appeal of The Nightmare Before Christmas goes well beyond the fact that it is both a Halloween and a Christmas movie. As Roger Ebert pointed out in his review from 1993, there "...is not a single recognizable landscape within it." While one can see the influences from everyone from Charles Addams to Dr. Seuss in its production design, it looks different from any other film before or since.
Another reason that The Nightmare Before Christmas is so highly regarded is its stop-motion animation. At the time of its release, most people were probably only knew stop-motion animation from the many Rankin/Bass holiday specials or Ray Harryhausen movies. While showing viewers that stop-motion animation could be used for more than television specials or visual effects in live-action movies, The Nightmare Before Christmas also introduced many innovations to stop-motion animation. Among these the three-dimensional sets that were lit the same way that live-action movies are. The film was shot much as a live-action movie would be, with the same sort of camera angles used in live-action. The camera in The Nightmare Before Christmas also moves much as it would in live-action movies. Even the puppets in The Nightmare Before Christmas were more detailed than those used in previous stop-motion projects. While The Nightmare Before Christmas owes a good deal to George Pal, Ray Harryhausen, and Rankin/Bass, the film took stop-motion animation further than anything before it. Director Henry Selick was responsible for much of the film's revolutionary stop-motion animation. A veteran of stop-motion animation, he would later direct such stop-motion animated films as James and the Giant Peach (1996) and Coraline (2009).
Ultimately, what makes The Nightmare Before Christmas so beloved is that it has a compelling story with well-developed characters. If the film had been nothing more than a technical wonder, it would not have become a cult film and then a classic. The characters of Jack Skellington, Sally, Doctor Finklestein, and Oogie Boogie may well seem more real to most viewers than many characters in live-action movies. It is because of its story and its characters that The Nightmare Before Christmas has a life all its own.
The Nightmare Before Christmas proved to be a popular film from its initial release. Its popularity has only grown in the years since, to the point that it would become regarded as a classic. I have no doubt that people will still be watching The Nightmare Before Christmas, on both Halloween and Christmas, for many years to come.
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