Jack Skellington is King of Halloween town and each year they ensure that the next is more horrible and terrifying than the last. Everything is about to change though when he stumbles across Christmas town and decides that he wants to take over Christmas from Santa!
I have a confession to make that I had never actually seen this film before until heading to the cinema to take advantage of Cineworld screening the film over the festive period. I thought that was my best chance of properly watching the film from start to finish. I am so pleased that I decide to see it as while it is pretty strange it is also very charming and has some great songs as part of the story.
Jack wants to take on Christmas this year and really make it as magical as it was in Christmas town so he manages to enlist all of the residents of Halloween town to help him. Making the presents and their version of well everything that Christmas is known for. That means it just isn’t quite going to be the same, with a scary feel to some of it as the resident witches, ghosts, ghouls and more try their very best to embrace the new found holiday.
What the film does really well is that it makes you think about how the different “holidays” are celebrated and what they are well known for. If you chance even a tiny thing about them then it isn’t going to go in the best way. But the singing certainly aids to the different scenes and I thought it worked very well with the story.
The style of the animation is a little different to what we are used to seeing but I think that is another aspect which makes it quirky in its own right and just happens to work out very well. I do believe it is known as clay animation and takes a very long time to put together. It’s not something that you would want to see all of the time though and it does take some getting used to.
While Tim Burton did not direct the film he did come up with the stories and characters that is something that you can certainly tell with the gothic and dark feel to it all. I guess a times it is difficult to decide whether the film is a Christmas film or a Halloween film . . . It can certainly be both that is not a problem at all.
Jack is a good character as well, I am sure everyone can relate to him at some point wanting to change your life and what you believe in. He really does give Christmas his very best shot but can he really change that he is the King of Halloween? I guess you will have to watch the film to find out. I do love that the film seems to have a cult following and that is something that is always nice to know when catching up with an older film like this one. Probably a slight shame that we struggle to get dark comedy musicals like this one very often! Happy to have caught up with this one, don’t forget to let me know what you think of this film.