Starring Danny Elfman, Chris Sarandon, Catherine O’Hara, William Hickey, Glenn Shadix, Paul Reubens, Ken Page
Written By: Tim Burton, Michael McDowell, Caroline Thompson
Directed By: Henry Selick
Studio: Disney / Buena Vista
Buy on Amazon.com link

Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas 2-Disc collector’s Edition is out now on DVD and Blu Ray. It’s digitally restored & digitally remastered, so this is a great set to own if you love this classic animated film!

Nightmare Before Christmas centers around Halloween Town. A scary place filled with ghouls, ghosts, skeletons, monster, boogie monsters, creepy dead kids and other things. The pumpkin king of Halloween Town, Jack Skellington, is bored with the same old Halloween routines. He wants something different. While walking through Halloween Town, he randomly ends up in a town called Christmas Town. The place is filled with snow, joy, Santa Claus’ village and lots of other Xmas stuff. Jack doesn’t really understand the holiday all that well but wants to spread the joy of Christmas. He develops a plan to kidnap Santa for a few hours and he’ll take over his job this year. But his plan backfires and freaks a bunch of kids out. He has to fix everything he messed up, along with the help from his Frankenstein-ish female friend, Sally.

Believe it or not, this was the first time I saw Nightmare Before Christmas. Shocking, I know. I just never got around to see it, and really had no desire to see it because there was singing in it. But the girlfriend wanted to watch it so I pretty much had no choice. I was curious to see it because I like Claymation and the majority of Tim Burton movies. I actually liked Nightmare Before Christmas a lot and even liked a few of the songs in the film. I don’t know what it is, but I found this movie so much more tolerable than Sweeney Todd. Perhaps the characters weren’t singing every other line and the film was made in clay? I didn’t know Danny Elfman voiced most of Jack Skellington’s stuff. Chris Sarandon did a lot of the talking dialogue but I really didn’t know that until I looked it up. I thought Danny Elfman did everything.

Just from watching the opening scene, with everyone singing This is Halloween, you can tell something like this was thought of in Tim Burton’s weird head. The stuff is just out there sometimes but that’s Burton for ya. The animation style is really well done and it was supervised by the direction of Henry Selick. He also directed James and the Giant Peach, another movies I haven’t seen. I really don’t like too many movies with singing it but this one wasn’t painful to sit through. I can see why it’s such a cult classic and why there is endless amounts of merchandise for this movie every time Halloween comes around. Jack Skellington is quite the iconic character.

One great thing about this DVD is some of the extras. I really enjoyed the Haunted Mansion Holiday tour featurettes. I didn’t know each year, Disneyland re-imagines the Haunted Mansion ride and makes it look like Jack Skellington was there. They went through each portion of the ride and it really made me want to go! They really put a lot work into the ride, and even Tim Burton loved it. Other extras include a standard Behind the Scenes featurette, along with deleted scenes, storyboards, new audio commentary with Tim Burton, Henry Selick and Danny Elfman. Christopher Lee narrates the original poem of Nightmare, written by Tim Burton. Plus, there’s a separate disc that contains a digital file of the movie to put on your mp3 player, etc. I really like that studios are providing this now.

If you don’t own The Nightmare Before Christmas, be sure to buy this 2-disc collection on DVD or Blu Ray. The movie looks really good on DVD since it was remastered, but I haven’t seen what it looks like on Blu Ray since I don’t own a player yet. Either way, if you are looking to upgrade your DVD of the movie, buy this one!

Features:
– What’s This? Jack’s Haunted Mansion Holiday Tour
– Frankenweenie (Uncut Version) With New Introduction By Tim Burton
– Vincent – Short Film
– Tim Burton’s Original Poem Narrated By Christopher Lee
– All-New Audio Commentary By Tim Burton, Director Henry Selick And Music Designer Danny Elfman
– Behind-The-Scenes Making Of “Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas”
– The Worlds Of “Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas”: Halloween Town, Christmas Town & The Real World
– Deleted Scenes
– Storyboard-To-Film Comparison
– Original Theatrical Trailers And Posters

Audio:
ENGLISH: Dolby Digital 5.1
SPANISH: Dolby Digital 5.1
FRENCH: Dolby Digital 5.1

Video:
Widescreen 1.66:1 Color (Anamorphic)

Subtitles:
Spanish, French

Favorite Scenes:
Rating: NR
Running Time: 76 minutes
Extras Rating:
Overall Rating: