The Nightmare Before Christmas: A Review Essay

Trust me, I am no Ebenezer Scrooge. I love Christmas, Christmas decorations, wrapping presents, and watching my daughter count down the days till the festive day. However, there is one part of Christmas that I’m not a big fan of and that is traditional Christmas movies. In fact, I couldn’t think of a worse way to spend a snowy, winter afternoon than watching classic Christmas movies like Miracle on 34th Street or The Christmas Story.

However, I am a big fan of The Nightmare Before Christmas, a non-traditional Christmas movie. To find out why myself, and many others, rather watch this Disney Christmas movie than traditional movies, keep reading below.

The Nightmare Before Christmas Review

Tim Burton is an absolute genius. If you aren’t familiar with his work, he also created Coraline and Edward Scissorhands. Burton is also the mastermind behind Disney’s Nightmare Before Christmas featuring a Halloween character, Jack Skellington (Chris Sarandon). In the movie, Jack, Halloween Town royalty, accidentally finds his way into Christmas Town.

At first, Jack is appalled at what he sees, and then his confusion turns to curiosity as he investigates Christmas Town in more depth and even gets a peek at Santa Claus. Eventually, Jack realizes he would like to bring some of the events he witnessed in Christmas Town to his own hometown, Halloween Town. Unfortunately for Jack, convincing the residents of Halloween Town such as ghosts, bats, goblins, and monsters to celebrate Christmas instead of Halloween isn’t as easy as Jack initially thought it would be.

• Nightmare Before Christmas was released in October 1993
• Based on a story and characters created by Tim Burton
• Tim Burton talked Disney into not doing a sequel to the movie
• Stop Motion animated film
• Earned $50 Million dollars at the box office during its first theater run

If you’re a fan of The Nightmare Before Christmas, you probably know people either love it or hate it. There really doesn’t seem to be any in-between. This isn’t just true with this Christmas classic, but with all stop motion movies. Here is a list of my favorite stop motion films.

1. ParaNorman
2. Coraline
3. The Fantastic Mr. Fox
4. Wallace and Grommit: The Cure of the Were Rabbit