back to flak's homepage
spacer
spacer
FILM

Archives
Submissions
2007 Also-Ran Awards: The Steak Knives
2006 Steak Knives
2005 Steak Knives
2004 Oscar Dialogues
2002 Oscars Roundtable
In Pursuit of Oscarness
Mulholland Drive audio commentary

CARTOONLAND

Interviews

Aqua Teen Hunger Force
by James Norton

Aqua Teen Hunger Force: The Follow-Up
by Kristen Elde

Homestar Runner
by James Norton

Seth MacFarlane
by James Norton

Animated Films

Ralph Bakshi and Postmodernism
by Andy Ross

Atlantis
rev. by Andy Ross

Cowboy Bebop: The Movie
rev. by Tony Nigro

Howl's Moving Castle
rev. by James Norton

Lilo & Stitch
rev. by Andy Ross

Metropolis
rev. by Tony Nigro

Monsters, Inc.
rev. by Andy Ross

Nightmare Before Christmas
rev. by James Norton

Shrek
rev. by Sean Weitner

Shrek 2
rev. by Stephen Himes

Tarzan
rev. by Sean Weitner

Music

The Mouse and the Mask
by James Norton

TV Shows

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Season One DVD
by James Norton

Clone High
by Dakota Loomis

Home Movies
by James Norton

Samurai Jack
by James Norton

South Park: Is it Right?
by Lonnie Harris

Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story DVD
by James Norton

RECENTLY IN FILM

Enchanted
dir. Kevin Lima

Control
dir. Anton Corbijn

No Country for Old Men
dirs. Joel and Ethan Coen

Eastern Promises
dir. David Cronenberg

Killer of Sheep
dir. Charles Burnett

La jetee/Sans soleil
dir. Chris Marker

Sicko
dir. Michael Moore

Helvetica
dir. Gary Hustwit

300
dir. Zack Snyder

2007 Flak Film Also-Ran Awards: The Steak Knives
by Flak Staff

More Film ›



ABOUT FLAK

Help wanted: Winter Intern

About Flak
Archives
Letters to Flak
Submissions
Rec Reading
Rejected!

ALSO BY FLAK

Flak Sunday Comics
The Spam Blog
The Remote
Flak Print [6mb PDF]
Flak Daily Photo

SEARCH FLAK

flakmag.comwww
Powered by Google
MAILING LIST
Sign up for Flak's weekly e-mail updates:

Subscribe
Unsubscribe

spacer

screenshot from The Nightmare Before Christmas

The Nightmare Before Christmas
dir. Henry Selick
Touchstone Pictures

The Nightmare Before Christmas gives death a big snuzzly bear hug, and doesn't let go. From the protagonist (a skeleton-headed scarecrow) to his love interest (a sewn-up Frankenstein's monster who, stitchmarks aside, is one of the loveliest belles ever to grace the world of stop-motion animation), the film is a naked skull with a shit-eating grin pasted across its laughing white face.

Despite its quirky, morbidly goofy spirit, The Nightmare Before Christmas has a fairly straightforward plot. Jack Skellington works full-time preparing for and staging Halloween. And although he's the star of Halloweentown and the acknowledged pumpkin king of the holiday, he hungers for something more.

Enter: Christmas. Skellington's expansive, inquisitive, and idealistic spirit leads him to believe that the mostly-dead but surprisingly perky residents of Halloweentown could do a better job at staging Christmas than Santa and his elves. Naturally, chaos ensues.

The recently re-released 1993 film is one worth seeing. When creator Tim Burton builds a world, he doesn't go halfway. His vision for Batman redefined the entire cultural concept of what a live-action superhero movie could be. Likewise, his work on Nightmare Before Christmas must be seen, preferably in the theater, to be believed. Director Henry Selick works skillfully within Burton's universe: Every frame of the film jumps with campy humor, macabre detail-work and an intoxicating blend of Edward Gorey artistic morbidity and Scooby Doo wackiness.

Its Danny Elfman score of dark pizzicato and woodwinds sets the scene and robustly supports the many musical numbers that make Nightmare a dazzlingly dark sing-along of cartoonish proportions.

Like any good musical, Nightmare uses its songs to spike critical moments of plot development and encapsulate important revelations and decisions with snappy lyrics and sing-along music. One of the film's happiest moments is when Jack Skellington stumbles upon Santa's Village in Christmastown, and expresses his wonder and surprise in a song that goes, in part, like this:

There's children throwing snowballs
instead of throwing heads
they're busy building toys
absolutely no one's dead

And while the entire production is pretty enjoyable, there's something about Nightmare that elevated it above most cute little holiday films, and brought it a cult following which fawn over its collectibles and the fan sites it has spawned.

Nightmare's place in mainstream society may be a gentle blip on the radar: It's a high-quality stop-animation film with a cachet as one of the few Halloween specials worth repeating, along with Charles Schulz's epic saga of the Great Pumpkin. But to a small and dedicated following in the goth community, Nightmare is special. It's a film that goes to the root of what it means for many to be "goth," in a way that no musical group really approximates.

The heart of a well-adjusted goth beats with the blood that The Nightmare Before Christmas is soaked in. Halloweentown isn't a collection of wounded, miserable, depressing monsters ekeing out an angry, lonely existence; it's a collection of freaks and geeks living as part of a basically happy, cohesive community. When Jack Skellington discovers the wonders of Christmastown, he gives a public lecture, and everyone turns out. When Jack goes missing, the mayor calls a town meeting, and the town square is packed with concerned monsters.

Beneath horrifying facades beat warm hearts. There isn't any prejudice or hatred in Halloweentown, and no one's particularly concerned that everyone wears black and seems to have a death fetish — or be dead themselves.

There's an irony to the film's main message, which is "don't try to pretend to be that which you are not." It's exactly what mainstream society has always told members of fringe cultures, as long as fringe cultures have been around. But the answer is loud and clear: "We aren't pretending — this is who we are." It's those in the mainstream who have generally failed to acknowledge their true selves, and announce them to the world.

It's going too far to say that The Nightmare Before Christmas is a cinematic classic that demands a viewing. But it's a film with a heart of gold, and a keen ear for balancing sentiment and style — and no one, anywhere, dressed in any color, should ever feel bad about loving it.

James Norton (jim@flakmag.com)

  spacer
spacer

All materials copyright © 1999-2007 by Flak Magazine

spacer