The Nightmare Before Christmas

In 1993 the picture went out under the Touchstone label rather than the Disney name. By Henry Selick’s account the studio feared that the ghoulish design would damage the brand. That judgement has since reversed, and the film now sits inside the company’s own heritage. Production ran three and a half years. Jack Skellington’s head was built with three hundred distinct expressions, and once in-between faces and duplicates were added so that several stages could shoot at the same time, the count passed three thousand. Seventy six minutes is the measure of that labour rather than a sign of a thin story. Authorship is worth settling before you choose it. Tim Burton supplied the story and the designs and produced the film, but he did not direct it, and Selick has said Burton kept his distance while the work was going on. Anyone picking this as a Burton title is in fact watching Selick’s cutting rhythm and puppet staging. For a viewer happy to let songs carry the plot, with music doing the job dialogue usually does. Not for one who expects Sally to be developed as fully as Jack, since her thread stays thin beside his.