The Nightmare Before Christmas 3D

Directed by Henry Selick.  Written by Caroline Thompson.  Story by Tim Burton.  Adaptation by Michael McDowell. Stars Danny Elfman, Catherine O'Hara, Chris Sarandon, William Hickey.  
1993, 86 minutes, Color, Rated PG.

Summary:
Bored with the same old scare-and-scream routine, Pumpkin King Jack Skellington longs to spread the joy of Christmas. But his merry mission puts Santa in jeopardy and creates a nightmare for good little boys and girls everywhere!.

3D Rating:  *** 1/2 out of *****

When THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS was released in 1993, Tim Burton was on a roll.   His first five films as a director were PEE WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE (1985), BATMAN (1989), EDWARD SCISSORHANDS (1990), BATMAN RETURNS (1992).  BATMAN (1982) was a huge hit, which no doubt enabled him to get NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS greenlit.  It was something of a dream project for him, and it took 3 years to accomplish all of the stop motion animation required to bring it to life.  This isn’t to say that Burton actively much worked on the film.  Director Henry Selick (JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH) brought the film to life, overseeing all aspects of its creation.

It's a wonderful Halloween film*, full of witty visual jokes and real heart, perfectly realized by Director Henry Selick and his team of animators.  It was state of the art animation at the very tail end of the "traditional" visual effect era--JURASSIC park was ushering in the era of CGI at the same time.  The film contains an outstanding performance by Danny Elfman as Jack Skellington, and he also composed the songs and soundtrack.  The movie is great fun.  I had a CAV laserdisc set of this back in the day that I cherished.

3D disclaimer:  I have a LED TV that can display digital 3D.  My 3D reviews are based on how things look on my set. I am aware that other methods of displaying 3D may be different.

THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS was filmed in 2D and converted to 3D in post-production by ILM.  Needless to say, 3D was not a consideration during the making of the film, although the nature of how it was made--three dimensional animation--lends itself better than I expected to digital 3D.  

NIGHTMARE is full of crazy Expressionistic sets that lend themselves very well to 3D.   Additionally, the very nature of stop-motion animation takes the third dimension into account by its very design.  Pair that with the top notch conversion job and you end up with a very satisfying 3D experience.  All of the sets exhibit the type of dimensionality usually only found in true 3D films.  This means that every few moments there is something new to gawk at.  There are also some pop out effects that work much better than you would think.  This is an exceptional conversion that is faithful in spirit to the original production.  In this way it is like the Pixar conversions.

* This is not a Christmas film.