Director: Henry Selick (USA). Year of Release: 1993
Firstly, can we get something out of the way before we start. This is a film which has become known as “Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas”. Even though Tim Burton didn’t direct it. He is the producer, which, as far as I understand, means ringing up some of his rich friends and asking them to stump up the cash to ensure that it’s made. But I guess that it is entirely right that the film is associated with Burton, as it stands or fall with his reputation.
Jack Skellington is sad, because Halowe’en is just over, and what is he going to do for the rest of the year? Skellington is the pumpkin king of Halloweentown. A chance encounter with Sandy Claus makes him consider taking over Christmas. We know that Skellington is great at what he does because everyone comes up to tell him so. And maybe the menace that he brings to Hallowe’en might remove some of Christmas’s traditional sentimentality?
It is legitimate to ask whether we are possibly, maybe, being expected to compare Skellington with producer (not director) Tim Burton, whose early films with the pre-acknowledged sexual abuser Johnny Depp had a minority of people asking why he was not being canonised by Hollywood. Burton carried a certain cachet of outsidership which was largely based on being supported by a whole heap of people who were very much inside the establishment.
Let’s leave all this aside for one moment, especially as we have a heroine who really seems to be excluded from society. Sally is effectively a slave for her creator, Dr Finkelstein. Our first encounter of the pair has Finkelstein ripping off Sally’s right arm. Like every other person in Halloweentown, Sally is uncontrollably in love with Jack Skellington, and will do anything that is physically possible to enable his planned mini-dictatorship.
Things Happen, not necessarily for plausible reasons, including Jack kidnapping Sandy Claws, and finding that maybe he is not the most suitable person for looking after Christmas. After all, this is a festival of family and not challenging each other (it is never suggested that this may not necessarily be a good thing). Maybe Christmas needs a much more jovial figurehead like Sandy Claus, than a man whose presence may be regarded as being a little more subversive.
The Nightmare Before Christmas is often touted as being the ultimate Goth film, and while I never went full Goth, I did spend a lot of time in their presence. And my main take out is that the biggest aspect of Goth – outside wearing black lipstick and listening more than you should do to the Cure and Bauhaus – was a feeling that you were challenging the restrictions imposed on you by society. On these criteria, The Nightmare Before Christmas is the exact opposite of a Goth film.
Surely the best thing about being a Goth – far better than having to sit through too many Tim Burton films – is not having to acquiesce to too much enforced jollity. Goths are allowed to sit through family Christmas dinner with a scowl. The Nightmare Before Christmas wants to deny them this final pleasure. Christmas here is great, because unlike scaring people, like you do at Hallowe’en, you can give them presents instead. To which all I have to say is Bah Humbug.
For all its Emo aspirations, this is a remarkable conformist film. Even Dr Finkelstein turns out of be nice inside, and everyone must know his place. Jack’s main problem is not that he can’t run things, more that he’s just the wrong sort of person for Christmas. Don’t have aspirations, kids. Stay in your lane and behave as society expects you to behave. This is part of the same process which caused countless Emo kids to buy the same Jack Skellington t.shirts to express their individuality.
It may also be worthwhile pointing out that The Nightmare Before Christmas is a musical. This is an entirely different thing to another Tim Burton music, Sweeney Todd, which deliberately avoided putting any singing in its trailer. Fair enough, maybe, if you’re chasing a certain audience, but at least Sweeney Todd’s songs were written by Stephen Sondheim. I defy anyone to remember of any of TNBC’s songs more than a couple of minutes after leaving the cinema.
The Nightmare Before Christmas does have its moments of sly humour, not least when Jack Skellington gives a performance of Hamlet, using his bodily flexibility to play both Hamlet and Yorrick. But it never really makes up its mind what it wants to be. It is maybe slightly too scary to be a kids’ film. But the lack of any serious plot or character development means that it fails to hold the attention of an adult. And it is just too eager to please to be seriously spooky.
But maybe it’s just me. There are reasons to love The Nightmare Before Christmas, and each of these reasons is one which barely touches me personally. It was a groundbreaking example of animation in 1991, but we’re now in 2023, and, besides, I wasn’t interested that much about animation even then. It addresses a certain moodiness of an adolescent boy who I never really was. It does certain tricks like a performing monkey, but never engaged me enough for me to care.
Many people have given 10 star IMDB reviews, and good luck to them. I’m glad that they enjoyed themselves, but this didn’t help the film touch me. The Nightmare Before Christmas is one of those films which is great if you like that sort of thing, but be prepared for it to leave you cold. Maybe I just lack that benevolent Christmas spirit, but let’s just say, as a subversive holiday film, it’s no Bad Santa.
CinePhil 