INFILTRATING THE LAND OF SUGAR PLUMS

By Janet Maslin

From The New York Times, 10.09.1993, Late Edition--Final

Tim Burton is already well known as a master of macabre ingenuity, but Tim Burton's the Nightmare Before Christmas presents him in a new light. This delectably ghoulish fairy tale, conceived by Mr. Burton as a full-length film made in stop-motion animation (think of the California Raisins on a dark and stormy night), has a clever visual format that keeps it streamlined and sharp. As directed painstakingly by Henry Selick, a stop-motion veteran who worked from Mr. Burton's blueprint, this buoyant film blends the most likable aspects of Edward Scissorhands, Beetlejuice and Batman, and sends them off to Toyland. It also stamps the unmistakable Burton sensibility onto every frame.

Tim Burton's the Nightmare Before Christmas is fun for the whole Addams family, as well as for anyone else inclined to appreciate the spectacle of Santa Claus being kidnapped and harassed. It is Mr. Burton's peculiar gift to find benign mischief in that kind of spectacle, just as Danny Elfman, who wrote the many serviceable songs that turn this into a full-fledged movie musical, is capable of writing gleefully in a minor key.

This is a film in which "Jingle Bells" is made to sound like a dirge and the main character, Jack Skellington, is accused of "mocking and mangling this joyous holiday" when he tries to steal Christmas. And yet Nightmare Before Christmas is in no way mean-spirited, despite its tarantula- and bat-shaped neckties and its skeletal reindeer leaping through the sky. Mr. Burton can take a character like Jack, this story's Grinch, and give his skull of a face blinking eyes and a button nose. The film maker's taste for jokey malevolence is much less troubling here than it was in the live-action world of Batman.

Nightmare Before Christmas begins in gray, spooky Halloweentown, where every evil-looking creature has been designed with the utmost delight. Straight lines are anathema to Mr. Burton, who dreams up a swirling, out-of-kilter universe filled with wonderfully eerie playthings. The film's plot isn't much, having to do with Jack's discovery of a sugary Christmas world and his plot to subvert it to his own Halloweenish tastes. But at least it affords the film a lot of visual variety. Still, Nightmare Before Christmas is better watched for its countless bits of inspired wickedness--snakes as wall sconces, ghosts jumping out of a pumpkin patch--than for its story line.

Among the film makers' more indelible touches are Lock, Shock and Barrel, three bad little ghouls given the job of bagging Santa, and Oogie Boogie, this film's answer to the Aladdin genie, who shows off his tuneful side during a spirited Santa-baiting song. Because this film, for all the fun it has with fright gags, is about as menacing as a gumdrop, children in the audience can rest assured that Santa will make it through his ordeal.

Very young children may be alarmed by this film's mock-scariness, but slightly older viewers should be thoroughly in sync with Mr. Burton's comic tastes. The Nightmare Before Christmas will be shown tonight at 9 and tomorrow at 1:30 P.M. as part of the New York Film Festival, along with Mr. Burton's 1982 Vincent. This prize-winning 11-minute short, a black-and- white tale that anticipates some of the visual ideas used in the new film, finds Mr. Burton effectively inventing the wheel. Eleven years later, that wheel is off and running.

The Nightmare Before Christmas is a major step forward for both stop-motion animation, which is stunningly well used, and for Mr. Burton himself. He now moves from the level of extremely talented eccentric to that of Disney-style household word.

Tim Burton's the Nightmare Before Christmas is rated PG (Parental guidance suggested). Some of its creepier imagery is apt to disturb small children.