Top Film for Each Year of My Life – 1993

The Nightmare Before Christmas

“You know, I think this Christmas thing is not as tricky as it seems! But why should they have all the fun? It should belong to anyone! Not anyone, in fact, but me! Why, I could make a Christmas tree! And there's not a reason I can find, I couldn't have a Christmastime! I bet I could improve it, too! And that's exactly what I'll do!”

“Jack, please, I'm only an elected official here, I can't make decisions by myself!”

Yet another Christmas movie with the top spot. And another musical, too. If I’m not careful, people are going to start thinking that I actually love musicals. I’ll nip that rumor in the bud right now. I don’t. I’m just a huge fan of Danny Elfman. All of his best work scoring movies has been with Tim Burton (who only has story/characters and producing credit on this film). The songs are funny, dark, whimsical, and catchy. I think it’s a foregone conclusion that if one is a fan of a musical, that person has the songs memorized, and I’m no exception.
’93 was an incredibly fun year for movies. Bill Murray’s great romantic comedy, Groundhog Day came out and became an instant classic. The third film of the Evil Dead trilogy, Army of Darkness failed at the box office, but continued the cult (and featured a musical contribution from Danny Elfman). Peter Jackson released what is considered to be one of the goriest films of all-time: the hilariously over the top Dead-Alive. And Steven Spielberg released Jurassic Park, one of the few films of his that I actively enjoy. Some pretty great times at the movies.

I don’t remember a bunch of hoopla over Nightmare upon its release. I saw it with a friend and my dad in a relatively empty theater. My friend and I spoke of the film in later years expressing a great deal of surprise about the lack of interest in it (something I did with Burton’s Mars Attacks! as well). Apparently, it was critically appreciated and did pretty well at the box office. I guess just not among my peers. I feel I was predisposed to like this film, again at the influence of my dad, whose love of the Claymation Christmas special gave me an appreciation for stop-motion animation (cooler types would claim Ray Harryhausen as their icon of stop-motion).
Nightmare is just so well-imagined and conceived that I was pretty stunned the first time I saw it. I was in awe that they could make Zero not only fly, but transparent too. The sets are amazing and the characters unique and scary in a cute way. My appreciation for the work increased ten-fold when I got to see the sets and characters in person at Universal Studios.

I love that the story paints the Halloween-world residents good-hearted, but with a different life perspective. They don’t want to do harm with their version of Christmas, but frightening people is just in their nature. They don’t understand any other way. It’s this child-like naiveté that makes the bulk of the film so appealing. Unlike with other musicals, the music and choreography never feels indulgent or that it slows the forward movement of the film. Perhaps that’s because there aren’t any huge dance numbers. There is hardly enough of a break from the endless onslaught of lyrics for that anyway (and who wants to see a bunch of plastic dance, anyway?).
And I’m sorry, but how did this not have a song up for an Oscar. I’m fine with Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen’s contributions, but Sleepless in Seattle and Beethoven’s 2nd(?!) both had songs nominated. I call bullshit.

Sadly, the Hot Topic crowd, most of who are barely old enough to have seen it upon its initial release, has hijacked Nightmare. But, everyone needs to dote upon something and at least they like something that is actually good. And on the plus side, there are all sorts of cool toys to be had (of which I have none, but I still dig them).