Big Picture Big Sound

The Film

Directed by Henry Selick (James and the Giant Peach), The Nightmare Before Christmas is in reality the brainchild of Tim Burton who wrote, produced and designed the entire affair. Inspired by the classic holiday specials of his (and just about everyone else's) childhood like The Grinch Who Stole Christmas and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and sparked by witnessing the changeover of a store window from Halloween to Christmas decorations, Burton set off to spin a Seussian tale of his own, but with a macabre twist that could only come from his mind.

The Nightmare Before Christmas is the story of Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King and leader of Halloween Town who has grown bored with leading the same holiday year after year. Distraught after leading the year's Halloween celebration and feeling listless, Jack wanders off into the forest outside Halloween Town to be alone where he happens upon a tree with a door shaped like a Christmas tree. When Jack opens the door, he falls in and enters the dazzling world of Christmas Town -- bright lights, presents, joy! Reinvigorated, Jack decides he will take over Christmas from "Santy Claws". Problems arise when he tries to explain Christmas to the citizens of Halloween Town; they just cannot grasp the concepts, but Jack goes ahead with his plans anyway.

Propelled by intricately detailed stop-motion animation that pushed the boundaries of the genre (and still looks amazing today), boisterous and melodic original music and songs by Danny Elfman and populated by cleverly designed and fleshed out characters, The Nightmare Before Christmas "sings" by in an expeditious 76 minutes. There is but one hole in the plot and that is the obligatory love story subplot between Jack and Sally, which happens too quickly and without just cause, as Sally almost immediately begins daydreaming about Jack, but it's a minor flaw in an otherwise solid story.

Nightmare plays like a Grinch in reverse. Despite his making a hash of the holiday and conspiring to kidnap Santa, Jack never wants to squash Christmas, he only wants to experience the wonderment of it and break out of the doldrums of his own life. Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas thus spins a charming tale of a misunderstood hero who does all the wrong things for all the right reasons. It is a mixture of a Disney animated classic, golden-era Hollywood musical, and 1930's horror with a heavy dose of Dr. Seuss. It all blends together to create what has become a timeless holiday-season classic that, like its main protagonist failed to do, bridges the gap between Halloween and Christmas every year. Children (and adults) of all ages will enjoy this film for a long time to come.

The Picture

The Nightmare Before Christmas finally appears in the U.S. on a home video format in its original 1.66:1 aspect ratio on this Blu-ray release in a 1080/24p AVC/MPEG-4 encoding averaging around 30Mbps.  All displays properly doing 1:1 pixel mapping with no overscan should see this image displayed "pillarboxed" with slight black bars on the sides of the image.

The visual world of Nightmare is mostly one of dark shadings, diffuse lights that give off subtle, amber glows, and deep inky blacks. This Blu-ray release captures that world in splendid detail with superb black levels, excellent contrast and detail. Delineation between different shadings of black is excellent in even the darkest of scenes.  Even the more colorful world of Christmas Town with its dazzling spectrum of colors is captured flawlessly with vivid saturation, pristine white snows and sparkling lights. The level of detail put forth by this release is spellbinding -- almost like you can jump into the screen and touch the puppets. Still, there were times that I thought the image looked a bit too clean. I would suspect that there is some DNR applied to this film, originally captured on 35mm, to suppress the grain and make it look more "dazzling", but it hardly detracts. There is no smoothness nor pixilation and fine detail is retained. There is even still just a fine level of grain still apparent helping to retain a bit of that organic, film-like quality. This release will set a very high standard for Disney's future endeavors, particularly their Platinum Edition releases of the animated classics.

The Sound

The Nightmare Before Christmas comes with English Dolby TrueHD 7.1 lossless and Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtracks.  Although the TrueHD track has +4db of DialNorm engaged, it still sounds quite dynamic and spacious. Sounds emanate from all around, with dialogue and vocals discretely mixed into all 7 main channels. Danny Elfman's musical score dips and dives in a wondrous procession of sounds that is joyous, energetic, full, relaxed, and easy on the ears. Like the picture, subtle nuances in instrumentation can often be discerned and although the low frequencies are not earth shaking, there is a weighty amount of bass. When the songs musical choruses are in full tutti and coming from all around it is an amazing experience. This mix stands as an excellent argument for lossless or uncompressed soundtracks in 7.1 on Blu-ray releases.


The Extras

This Collector's Edition of The Nightmare Before Christmas is one of the rare releases that comes with an abundance of supplemental materials that aren't just throwaways. On the contrary, the extras on this BD are all rather informative, entertaining, and also offer much in the way of replay value. Tim Burton fans will particularly enjoy the two short films included as well as the illustrated narration of his original poem that Nightmare is based upon.

The extras available on this release are:

• What's This? Jack's Haunted Mansion Holiday Tour (1.78:1/high definition) -- This is a promotional spot for the Disney theme park attraction. It can be played with or without a pop-up trivia track that displays factoids about the Haunted Mansion attraction, which appears in all four of Disney's theme parks.
• Tim Burton's Original Poem Narrated by Christopher Lee (1.78:1/high definition) -- This is the original poem written by Tim Burton, which served as the inspiration for the film. As Burton explains, he was watching a store window one day have its decorations switched over from Halloween to Christmas and he was inspired to pen the poem. This poem really shows the heavy Dr. Seuss influence on The Nightmare Before Christmas and the narration is illustrated with artwork based on Burton's original sketches.
• All-New Audio Commentary by Producer Tim Burton, Director Henry Selick, and Music Composer Danny Elfman -- This is your typical audio commentary and is rather dry to listen to. Interestingly enough, it is revealed that production for Nightmare began without a script, but the songs by Elfman were mostly all finished so that's what they started work on first. Elfman was also responsible for some additional lyrics, though he's not credited for it in the film.
• Frankenweenie with All-New intro by Tim Burton (4:3/standard definition/black & white) -- A 1984 short film by Tim Burton starring Shelley Duval and Daniel Stern. The film is about a boy named Victor Frankenstein who resurrects his recently deceased dog using electricity. The film plays like a tribute to the old horror classics more so than standing as an original piece of work on its own. It is preceded by an introduction from Burton who reveals he is in the middle of working on a full-length animated remake of the film.
• Vincent (4:3/standard definition/black & white) -- Narrated by Vincent Price, this is an early stop-motion animated short by Tim Burton resurrected from the Disney archives about a boy fascinated with all things macabre who fantasizes of being Vincent Price. You can clearly see the early influences that would go on to inform The Nightmare Before Christmas in this little gem.
• Deleted Storyboards (4:3/standard definition) -- Storyboard sketches for sequences cut from the film that never made it to the animation process. The storyboards include:
  • "Behemoth Singing"
  • "Ooogie Boogie Dancing with Bugs" -- Cut mainly because it would have been far too complicated to animate the bugs
  • "Alternate Identity of Oogie Boogie" -- A storyline that originally had the Dr. Finkelstein character being revealed as Oogie Boogie
• Deleted Animated Sequences (4:3/standard definition) -- Four animated sequences that were eventually cut from the film, mainly due to time constraints:
  • "Jack's Scientific Experiments"
  • "Vampire Hockey Players"
  • "Lock, Shock, and Barrel"
  • "Oogie Boogie Dance"
• The Making of Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas (4:3/standard definition) -- This is the unusual behind-the-scenes featurette that actually offers up some real, informative information on the film. In this "making-of", much information can be garnered about the painstaking process and effort over the course of 3 years that went into making Nightmare the marvel that it is. It also serves as a good primer on the process of stop-motion animation, which is explored and explained in good detail and with language that laymen can understand.
• Halloween Town -- Still galleries of character design sketches and concept art plus some brief animation tests with audio commentaries by the director for the characters and scenery that populate Halloween Town in the film. Sections include:
• Jack Skellington
  • Character Designs
  • Animation Tests
  • Jack's Tower Concept Art
• Sally
  • Character Designs
  • Animation Tests
  • Kitchen Concept Art
• Oogie Boogie
  • Character Designs
  • Oogies Lair Concept Art
• Evil Scientist and Igor
  • Character Designs
  • The Laboratory Concept Art
• Lock, Shock, and Barrel
  • Character Designs
  • The Treehouse Concept Art
• The Citizens
  • Character Designs
• Zero Animation Tests
• Halloween Town Concept Art
• Christmas Town - A slide show of concept designs and sketch art for Christmas Town. Sections include:
  • Santa Claus Character Designs
  • Santa's Helper's Character Designs
  • Concept Art
• The Real World -- A Slide show of Character designs and sketch art for the Real World segments of the film. Sections include:
  • Character Designs
  • Concept Art
• Storyboard-to-film Comparison (4:3/standard definition) -- A side-by-side comparison of storyboard sketches with the scene in the film where Jack tries to explain to the citizens of Halloween Town about Christmas.
• Posters and Trailers -- A slide show of promotional posters and the trailers for the film, which include a Teaser Trailer (4:3/standard definition) and the original trailer (4:3/standard definition).
• This Collector's Edition BD release also includes a second disc which allows you to unlock and download a digital copy of the film and transfer it to an iPod , Windows MediaPlayer compatible device, or play it back from your Mac or PC. The BD is also D-Box motion code enabled for all users with such devices in their home theater setups.

Final Thoughts

The Nightmare Before Christmas is a latter day holiday classic that deserves any and all praise that has been lavished upon it. With The Nightmare Before Christmas Tim Burton reached the level of timelessness of the very holiday specials that influenced its creation. Disney's Collector's Edition Blu-ray Disc release was done with the level of care and attention that a title such as this deserves. I have a hard time believing that anyone, young or old, will be disappointed with any aspect of this Blu-ray release.  This release will set a very high standard for Walt Disney's forthcoming slate of Platinum Edition animated classic releases on Blu-ray Disc starting with Sleeping Beauty this October. If they can meet this standard we are all in for a very special treat. The Nightmare Before Christmas Collector's Edition on Blu-ray Disc is highly recommended by this reviewer.

Where to Buy

• Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas Collector's Edition on Blu-ray Disc (Amazon.com)

Product Details

• Actors: Danny Elfman, Chris Sarandon, Catharine O'Hara, William Hickey, Glenn Shadix
• Director: Henry Selick
• Format: AC-3, Anamorphic, Animated, Collector's Edition, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, HiFi Sound, Original recording remastered, Surround Sound, THX, Widescreen
• Audio/Language: English Dolby TrueHD 7.1 and English Dolby Digital 5.1
• Subtitles:English SDH, French, Spanish
• Region: A
• Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
• Number of discs: 2
• Rating: PG
• Studio: WALT DISNEY STUDIOS HOME ENTERTAINMENT
• Blu-ray Disc Release Date: August 26, 2008
• Run Time: 76 minutes
• List Price: $39.99
• Extras:
  • All-New Blu-ray Exclusive Tim Burton Movie Introduction
  • 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 World's 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