The Nightmare Before Christmas

This stop-motion animated fable was a big hit when it was released -- not only at the box office, but critically. It was praised for its stunning originality and for the excellence of its execution. In addition, it was praised for being a completely absorbing fable that both grownups and children ...more

Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas is the quintessential goth fairy tale. It's dark, enchanting, and utterly beautiful. In recent years, the film has been integrated into Hot Topic culture, with kids too young to have caught the film's 1993 opening creating a cult around its Disneyland presence and single-disc DVD release. Nightmare has finally gotten the proper DVD treatment with the new two-disc special edition, and it's bound to seep its way into teens' heads even more. The movie is ...more

Though The Nightmare Before Christmas was universally acclaimed for its seemingly kid-friendly stop-motion animation, parents of the youngest tots should be duly warned. The expressionistic world created by producer/production designer Tim Burton and director Henry Selick may be full of jaw-dropping invention, but it also includes scenes of Santa Claus being tortured on a rack, and a confused child pulling a severed head from his stocking (rendered about as mildly as such a thing can be). What ...more