by Rebecca Fisher

Introduction:

There’s something innately spooky about the idea of dolls moving on their own, and as such, creepy stories are often best suited for the tiny manikins of stop-motion animation. Whilst traditional 2-D animation has been almost totally replaced with 3-D computer animation when it comes to big-screen films, there’s still a popular niche market for the intricacies of stop-motion. Created from real objects on real sets under real lighting, the technique relies on figures being moved in tiny augmentations between individually photographed frames. When they’re played in a continuous sequence, it results in the illusion of movement.

Thus every gesture, every blink, every detail is the result of a lengthy and painstaking process, and films like the ones we’re going to explore over the course of this month are usually three or more years in the making, with one minute of screen-time taking a week to film, and each second requiring about twenty-four separate frames.

The one thing they all have in common is a macabre atmosphere, and it doesn’t seem to be a coincidence that many of the films to emerge from this art-form are spooky in nature. Perhaps the creepiness derives from the unsettling thought we all had as children, that our toys might well come to life once we’d left the room. Maybe it’s just the sense of watching inanimate objects come to life before our eyes. Whatever the reason, it makes all these movies perfect fare for Halloween.

Premise:

Contrary to assumptions, Tim Burton did not direct The Nightmare Before Christmas (that was the task of Henry Selick) nor even write the screenplay (the work of Caroline Thompson), but co-produced and contributed to the storyline and original characters, many of which were sketched out extensively by his own hand. He cites his inspiration as various Christmas Holiday Specials, namely the Rankin/Bass stop-motion Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Doctor Seuss’s animated How the Grinch Stole Christmas. In fact, Nightmare is best described as an inverted Grinch, for instead of a villain trying to steal Christmas, this film deals with a hero attempting to hijack it with the very best of intentions.

Another important collaborator in the project was Danny Elfman, who provided the score and the musical numbers, both of which are as integral to the story-telling process as those found in any animated Disney spectacle. In fact, Elfman also sings all the songs performed by Jack Skellington, and such is their importance to telling the tale that his singing role is credited BEFORE Chris Sarandon as Jack’s speaking voice in the closing credits.

Henry Selick (director) and Tim Burton (co-producer) on-set

And of course, there are the countess artisans and technicians that bring to life the film’s visual splendour, drawing on the etched quality found in the work of Edward Gorey and Charles Addams for stylistic inspiration, filling Halloween Town with a palette of black, white and orange that has since made The Nightmare Before Christmas a holiday classic. To my mind, the entire visual atmosphere is in encased in what has become known as “Spiral Hill”: the landmark on the outskirts of Halloween Town (and prevalent in many of the film’s posters) that curls upwards and into a Gothic spiral and which unravels to allow any pedestrians access to the graveyard below. It’s quintessential Tim Burton imagery.

Storyline:

Well, I suppose I should finally get to telling you what the film is actually about. In a quiet wood stands a strange circle of trees, each one with a door pertaining to a different holiday. There’s an Easter egg, a Thanksgiving turkey, a Valentine’s heart, a St Patrick’s Day four-leaf clover, a Christmas tree – and a Jack O’Lantern. It’s behind this door that our story is predominantly set, in the creepy community of Halloween Town.

There the residents – witches, ghouls, werewolves, ghosts and many, many more – are celebrating their Halloween night with songs and dancing and wild laughter, led by the famous Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King. But once the jubilation has come to a close, it becomes apparent that Jack is suffering from a strange sort of melancholy. In his own words: “Year after year, it’s the same routine…I’ve grown so tired of the same old thing…”

After a long walk to relieve his feelings, he chances upon the clearing in the woods and is drawn toward the door with the Christmas tree, catapulting himself into Christmas Town, where the denizens are busily preparing for their own big day.

Jack explores the wonders of Christmas Town

Jack is exuberant! Here is something new and fresh, something he desperately wants to share with the rest of the Halloween Town residents and make his own. But according to him, the holiday could do with a few improvements… but how to do that while Santa Claus (or “Sandy Claws”) is still running the show? Well, he’s just going to have to take the Man in Red out of commission. Temporarily, of course! Just until after Jack has shared his own brand of Christmas magic with the world…

Characters:

As hinted above, the world of Halloween Town is populated with a range of colourful figures, and the imaginative force behind the film results in an array of great character designs, from the Town Mayor who is quite literally two-faced thanks to a head that swivels around to denote his mood, to a trio of monstrous trick-or-treaters who are transported about in a walking bathtub, to an original take on the Bogyman as a humanoid burlap sack filled with a nasty secret.

The Mayor of Halloween Town and his revolving face (and moods)

But it’s with our two protagonists that the real charm lies: the spidery movements of Jack Skellington and the tottery gait of Sally, the rag-doll who admires Jack from afar and has grave misgivings about his newfound enthusiasm for Christmas. Almost unbelievably, the skeleton and the stitched-up doll manage to create a rather touching (though unconventional) love story together, with each coming to the other’s rescue in times of trouble.

When I first watched this film as a child, I remember being quite struck with its unusual message, which basically amounts to “stick with what you know” and “don’t meddle in things that don’t concern you!” Where other movies aimed at youngsters are filled with trite lessons about following your dreams and being whatever you want to be (however impractical these messages might be), Nightmare takes a strangely conservative view. At first you can’t help but emphasize with Jack’s discontent with a role that has long since turned stale for him, as well as his zeal in wanting to do something different with his life, only for him to reclaim his original persona of the Pumpkin King by the film’s conclusion – though not before nearly destroying Christmas for everyone. Perhaps the true moral to be taken from the story is to think carefully before inflicting your own personal dissatisfactions on the world – for Jack’s true happiness was to be found in Sally’s companionship, not in stealing the identity of Santa Claus.

Not quite what you’d expect from a visit from Santa…

Conclusion:

When the film was first released back in 1993 (wow, has it really been that long?), the Disney Company was leery about adding their brand-name to the marketing, deeming the film too frightening for children and releasing it under their Touchstone Pictures moniker instead. Since then, the film has become a holiday classic, and Disney has embraced its popularity, going so far as to give it a 3-D conversion and refurnish Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion with its characters and settings every Halloween.

More importantly, its popularity ensured the continued production of stop-motion animated films for a long time to come.

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Next Time:

Victor van Dort is getting married! Not that he’s particularly happy about it – his parents are forcing him into it and he hasn’t even met the bride. But while he’s practicing his wedding vows out in the forest, he makes a terrible mistake… I won’t go into details now, but let’s just say that a clue is in the film’s title: Corpse Bride.

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About The Reviewer:

Rebecca Fisher is a graduate of the University of Canterbury with a Masters degree in English Literature, mainly, she claims, because she was able to get away with writing her thesis on C.S. Lewis and Philip Pullman. She is a reviewer for FantasyLiterature.com, a large website that specializes in fantasy and science-fiction novels, as well as posting reviews to Amazon.com and her own LiveJournal blog.

To read Rebecca’s detailed introduction of both herself and the series, as well as preceding Big Worlds On Small Screens reviews, click on:

Big Worlds On Small Screens