Jack Skellington, king of Halloween Town, discovers Christmas Town, but his attempts to bring Christmas to his home causes confusion.Jack Skellington, king of Halloween Town, discovers Christmas Town, but his attempts to bring Christmas to his home causes confusion.Jack Skellington, king of Halloween Town, discovers Christmas Town, but his attempts to bring Christmas to his home causes confusion.
- Nominated for 1 Oscar
- 7 wins & 17 nominations total
Catherine O'Hara
- Sally
- (voice)
- …
Glenn Shadix
- Mayor
- (voice)
Paul Reubens
- Lock
- (voice)
Ken Page
- Oogie Boogie
- (voice)
Edward Ivory
- Santa
- (voice)
- (as Ed Ivory)
Susan McBride
- Big Witch
- (voice)
- …
Debi Durst
- Corpse Kid
- (voice)
- …
Greg Proops
- Harlequin Demon
- (voice)
- (as Gregory Proops)
- …
Kerry Katz
- Man Under Stairs
- (voice)
- …
Randy Crenshaw
- Mr. Hyde
- (voice)
- …
Sherwood Ball
- Mummy
- (voice)
- …
Carmen Twillie
- Undersea Gal
- (voice)
- …
Glenn Walters
- Wolfman
- (voice)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Movie and TV Santas We Love
Movie and TV Santas We Love
Celebrate the most wonderful time of the year with some of our favorite portrayals of Santa Claus.
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaTim Burton has said the original poem was inspired after seeing Halloween merchandise display in a store being taken down and replaced by a Christmas display. The juxtaposition of ghouls and goblins with Santa and his reindeer sparked his imagination.
- Goofs(at around 37 mins) In "Kidnap the Sandy Claws," just before Lock launches Barrel across the room, Lock is singing and his words are aligned. But when Barrel begins to sing, Lock's lips are moving to the words that Barrel should be singing. Barrel's lips don't move at all.
- Quotes
Jack Skellington: [singing] Just because I cannot see it, doesn't mean I can't believe it!
- Crazy creditsNo credits are shown, except the company and the film's name.
- Alternate versionsThe special edition DVD version has never-before-seen footage of this movie and are the following:
- Lock, Shock and Barrel (the trick-or-treaters) are bored so they grab some snacks and go inside their cage/elevator to watch oogie boogie torture Santa and Sally. And later, a thought to be dead Jack Skellington enters the lair by jumping on the cage/elevator with the kids inside and he scares them which can explain how he got inside the lair at the nick of time. Pictures of the scene were in the promotional booklets, postcard books, and storybooks.
- Jack's further experiments with Christmas such as having a illustrating "Sandy Claws" as a human/lobster hybrid.
- a deleted part of oogie boogie's song that shows his shadow dancing.
- a scene where the vampires are playing hockey with the head of Tim Burton, this was corrected and Tim's head was replaced with a Jack O' Lantern.
Featured review
Jack Skellington is the Pumpkin King the creative genius behind the holiday of Halloween, designing each year to be scarier and more horrible than the one before. However deep inside he longs for more than the horror and scares of Halloween Town, a longing he cannot understand until he stumbles into Christmas Town and sees happiness and cheer the likes of which has evaded him all these years. Having finally worked out what Christmas is all about, Jack decides to kidnap Santa and make himself the new king of Christmas Town so that he can have the happiness of Christmas all the time. But the others in the towns realize the significant consequences that this disruption of the norm will have as Jack's evil nature proves harder to overcome than he thought.
With Pixar currently dominating the world of 'animations that please both children and adults' it is easy to forget that over a decade ago Tim Burton delivered this delightful family film to the cinema using a much more traditional animation and a huge amount of imagination. The basic plot is a great little fantasy fairytale with a very dark heart to it that make it much more enjoyable for having that edge. Too often kids films (especially at the time and animated) are soaked in a sweet sentiment that simply forgets that kids are not stupid and indeed often prefer a bit of darkness in the story. The only downside of this darkness is that younger children might not 'get it' and just end up being scared by the Halloween images and imaginative images. Despite this the material will play equally well to adults and children because it neither panders to nor excludes one group over the other at any time. Regardless of the material, the film still manages to come off as charming and enjoyable thanks to a well-written script that never plays for the basic laugh or easy sentiment. Some viewers may come to this with Pixar in their minds and bemoan it for not being hilariously funny from start to finish, but they are missing the point and
The songs reflect this approach and are very clever throughout; whether it is the sorrowful longing of Jack at the start or the Cab Calloway-inspired song from Oogie Boogie Man, generally they are inventive and fun. The same praise can be laid at the door of the stop-motion animation, which is inventive and fun to look at from start to finish. All the characters have a great deal of effort put in and they add to the dark feel of the film. The voice cast may not feature a load of well-known voices in the same way as Pixar films generally do, but they still do a great job. Sarandon and Elfman combine to do a good job with Jack; Page is fun as Oogie Boogie; O'Hara is good as Sally despite not having as fun a character to work with but for my money it is Hickey (as Dr Finklestein) and Shadix (Mayor) that make the biggest impression, mainly due to having the most enjoyable characters.
Overall this is a very short but very enjoyable film that will please both children and adults at the same time (with the same material) and never ignores or panders to one side of the audience over the other. Both groups will appreciate the dark fairytale, the clever songs, the darkly imaginative animation and the comic sense of humour, making this a family film that deserves to be remembered even as kids movie get smarter and fancier.
With Pixar currently dominating the world of 'animations that please both children and adults' it is easy to forget that over a decade ago Tim Burton delivered this delightful family film to the cinema using a much more traditional animation and a huge amount of imagination. The basic plot is a great little fantasy fairytale with a very dark heart to it that make it much more enjoyable for having that edge. Too often kids films (especially at the time and animated) are soaked in a sweet sentiment that simply forgets that kids are not stupid and indeed often prefer a bit of darkness in the story. The only downside of this darkness is that younger children might not 'get it' and just end up being scared by the Halloween images and imaginative images. Despite this the material will play equally well to adults and children because it neither panders to nor excludes one group over the other at any time. Regardless of the material, the film still manages to come off as charming and enjoyable thanks to a well-written script that never plays for the basic laugh or easy sentiment. Some viewers may come to this with Pixar in their minds and bemoan it for not being hilariously funny from start to finish, but they are missing the point and
The songs reflect this approach and are very clever throughout; whether it is the sorrowful longing of Jack at the start or the Cab Calloway-inspired song from Oogie Boogie Man, generally they are inventive and fun. The same praise can be laid at the door of the stop-motion animation, which is inventive and fun to look at from start to finish. All the characters have a great deal of effort put in and they add to the dark feel of the film. The voice cast may not feature a load of well-known voices in the same way as Pixar films generally do, but they still do a great job. Sarandon and Elfman combine to do a good job with Jack; Page is fun as Oogie Boogie; O'Hara is good as Sally despite not having as fun a character to work with but for my money it is Hickey (as Dr Finklestein) and Shadix (Mayor) that make the biggest impression, mainly due to having the most enjoyable characters.
Overall this is a very short but very enjoyable film that will please both children and adults at the same time (with the same material) and never ignores or panders to one side of the audience over the other. Both groups will appreciate the dark fairytale, the clever songs, the darkly imaginative animation and the comic sense of humour, making this a family film that deserves to be remembered even as kids movie get smarter and fancier.
- bob the moo
- Nov 1, 2004
- Permalink
Holiday Movie Posters We Love
Holiday Movie Posters We Love
We've rounded up some of our favorite posters for holiday movies over the years. Which ones are you favorites?
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Official sites
- Language
- Also known as
- El extraño mundo de Jack
- Filming locations
- Skellington Productions - 375 7th Street, San Francisco, California, USA(Studio, demolished in 1998)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $18,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $93,745,329
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $191,232
- Oct 17, 1993
- Gross worldwide
- $107,798,859
- Runtime1 hour 16 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
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