The Nightmare Before Christmas is a very special musical. It acts as both a Halloween and Christmas movie and has a great soundtrack. Because I've been watching a lot of musicals lately and have been beginning to appreciate them more, as well as it being October, it's finally time to revisit this great Burton film! It has surprisingly catchy music, extremely well done stop-motion, and delightful characters.
Like I said before, I'm not one to completely love musicals. Though there are ones that I like, like The Sound of Music and some Disney musicals, The Nightmare Before Christmas just has an awesome style of music that combines a dark and creepy styles with a bright and colorful Christmas style that makes the soundtrack stand out among the rest. It's not too one style over the other either. Jack's Lament in particular stands as a good example of the combination of styles. This song has lyrics and a rise in tone that is distinctly Halloween while having instruments that you might hear in a Christmas special. It is also quite special how the score can express the emotions that these characters are having at any given moment. Town Meeting Song is also very stylized and probably my favorite track. It is creepy but also somehow festive and gives you insight into more of Jack's feelings.
The animation in this film is outstanding! The Halloween Town characters move and flow in a way that give them all a distinct personality and the backgrounds are all extremely detailed and magnificent. I especially like the What's This scene where Jack Skellington is exploring the newly discovered Christmas Town. He creeps into houses and strolls the streets of the town. This scene in particular is great at showing bright and colorful backgrounds and landscapes that really pop out at you. Halloween Town is also very booming with... well... cleverly a lack of color. It looks and feels like a Halloween-themed town filled with ghosts and ghouls that all look and act like you think they would. The stop-motion nature of the film also gives way to great looking but simplistic natural effects such as natural shadows and lighting. The editors also added in additional effects, however, like the ghosts being hand-drawn animation as well as the fire. Everything comes together in a truly remarkable looking musical.
Though the most I liked about the movie was its atmosphere, the story was very enjoyable and constantly kept me guessing on what was going to happen next (even though I had seen it before). It also takes a very good writer to make me care for minor characters. The Doctor for example. At the end of the movie you see that he has created him a wife for himself so he has someone to love. This just warms my heart and it shows that, though this is Halloween Town, everybody can get a bit of Christmas if they want too.
Overall, The Nightmare Before Christmas is a classic that will always be remembered as a weird and fun musical that families all over the world will get together to watch on either Halloween or Christmas.
The Nightmare Before Christmas was creative!
0 comments:
Post a Comment