Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, which director and stop-motion specialist Henry Selick adapted from Burton’s original poem and drawings, is endlessly delightful, even as it deals in icky bugs and severed limbs. Kids love to be scared – to a point – and few filmmakers are as skilled as Burton at playing up the whimsical, delightful side of “scary” stories. Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town, grows tired of his spooky duties, so he decides to fill in for Santa Claus one Christmas. Halloween Town is a mournfully gorgeous place – that drooping curlicue of a cliff Jack likes to visit has become the picture’s iconic image. The residents, meanwhile, are amusingly gruesome, from the singing vampires to Jack’s love interest, Sally, who keeps having to sew her arms and legs back on. Kids won’t know whether to giggle or go “Ewww!” (And, of course, they love doing both.)
