I'm a master of fright and a demon of light

Last Sunday, my best friend Danger and I took my sister to see The Nightmare Before Christmas in 3-D.


My mom took me to see it when it first came out in 1993, and I've loved it ever since. I'll admit I was skeptical about the 3-D thing. My only previous experience with 3-D entertainment came from attempting to play Rad Racer in 3-D back in what...1989? The previews kind of worried me, because they were for somewhat super-3-D movies, and they looked kind of out of focus to me, but once Nightmare started, it was great. I felt like a little kid, in my big dorky green plastic 3-D glasses, but it was so much fun.

I don't know if it was the 3-D or just seeing the movie on a gigantic screen, but I found myself noticing intricacies of the stop motion that I either never noticed before or haven't noticed in a while. I was amazed at the amount of small movements that were used, especially with Jack Skellington. During some of his big songs, he moved his hands around constantly, which means they shot sequence after sequence where they had to move all his little skeleton fingers just a little bit and then a little bit more. Crazy...

The big rescue Sandy Claws from the Oogie Boogie sequence has always been my least favorite sequence (not really that I disliked it...I just didn't like it as much as I liked the rest of the movie), but in 3-D it just popped. Something about the combination of the 3-D effect with the blacklight was just incredible.

Seeing it in large size / volume also helped me appreciate Danny Elfman's score all over again.

If you like Nightmare, it's definitely worth seeing the 3-D version, and if you've never seen it, maybe it's time to give it a chance.