Wayne's 31 Days of Horror Film Challenge Day 4 - The Nightmare Before Christmas

As soon as someone says “claymation” at this time of year I’m immediately reaching for “The Nightmare before Christmas” (1993 Dir. Tim Burton). To be fair Nightmare is a fairly perennial choice in our household. It’s cheery and whimsical enough to appeal to our daughter and contains enough scary stuff so’s not to tip it over into actually scary- which is a fine line. 

This time however I’m reminded that there’s a hole in my Tim Burton completionists card. The Corpse Bride has eluded both my curiosity and my daughters’ keen eye for “weird stuff she might like”. I can’t honestly say why I’ve never sought to watch it and embarrassingly it’s another one of those titles that has been purchased and left to linger unwatched on the shelf. On release it was unfavourably compared to Burton’s previous stop-motion endeavour and languished a little at the box office. The cast is made up as you’d imagine of lots of Burton’s favourite players. Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter assume the leads with Michael Gough, Christopher Lee, Albert Finney, Richard E .Grant and Joanna Lumley among many others fleshing out the cast. Paul Whitehouse lends a voice to three characters- a nice little bridge to last nights “Ghost Stories”. 

There’s a wonderful tactile beauty to Claymation- a veracity to how the characters are rendered and perceived that, for me at least, has a disarming charm.  I’m automatically predisposed to like what I’m about to watch whatever the subject. Maybe that’s a flaw when thinking critically about film but I’m currently of the opinion that one should seek to enjoy any endeavour in as much as one can. Here then I get to watch a gorgeously rendered world, hear Christopher Lee’s foreboding delivery and marvel at the idiosyncrasies of Burton’s world. Topped to the brim with the colourful macabre.