The Nightmare Before Christmas Page #3

Synopsis: Jack Skellington, the pumpkin king of Halloween Town, is bored with doing the same thing every year for Halloween. One day he stumbles into Christmas Town, and is so taken with the idea of Christmas that he tries to get the resident bats, ghouls, and goblins of Halloween town to help him put on Christmas instead of Halloween -- but alas, they can't get it quite right.
Director(s): Henry Selick
Production: Touchstone Pictures
  Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 7 wins & 12 nominations.
 
IMDB:
8.0
Metacritic:
82
Rotten Tomatoes:
95%
PG
Year:
1993
76 min
$8,616,662
Website
1,604 Views


EXT. STREET. NIGHT/CONTINUOUS TIME.

A HEARSE passes the Manse. Riding on top is the corpulent MAYOR

of Halloweenland. Not surprisingly, he's a TWO-FACED SORT OF

GUY, revealed as each of his faces sings a line:

MAYOR:

In this town, don't we love it now

Everybody's waiting for the next surprise.

While the hearse turns a

CORNER:

and glides past an ALLEY we hear a GRAVELLY VOICE:

GRAVELLY VOICE:

'Round that corner, man,

Hiding in a trashcan

Something's waiting now to pounce and how you'll--

The lid flies off of a trashcan and out pops the GRAVELLY-VOICED

TRASHCAN-DWELLING MONSTER. He's fat and slimy and grotesque.

GRAVELLY-VOICED

TRASHCAN-DWELLING MONSTER

-- Scream! This is Halloween,

Red 'n black, slimy green...

Aren't you scared? Well, that's just fine!

WITCHES speed toward us on their brooms -- zipping out of the alley.

WITCHES:

Say it once, say it twice,

Take the chance and roll the dice

Ride with the moon in the dead of night (oh)

At the street, the witches fan out and swoop past the

HANGING TREE,

a gigantic oak with SEVERAL HANGED MEN dangling from its broad,

outspread branches.

The hanging tree itself sings:

HANGING TREE:

Everybody scream, everybody scream

In our town of Halloween.

The hanged men suddenly revive:

HANGED MEN:

This is Halloween, This is Halloween...

EXT. ANOTHER STREET. NIGHT.

A LUMPEN-LOOKING LONG-HAIRED WOMAN IN HEELS hurries away down a

tortuously windy street. This is SALLY. For now, we see only

her backside, her waist-length hair.

Behind her, and closer to us, a GHOUL tips into view to

demonstrate his particular talent:

GHOUL:

I am the guy with the tearaway face...

Sally hesitates, listening.

GHOUL (CONT'D)

Here in a flash and gone without a trace.

Sally is about to turn around, but as the ghoul vanishes, she

continues on her way. We follow her.

In a moment, a SECOND GHOUL sets upon her -- this one more

gruesome than the last.

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Caroline Thompson

Caroline Thompson (born April 23, 1956) is an American novelist, screenwriter, film director, and producer. She wrote the screenplays for Tim Burton's films Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Corpse Bride. She co-wrote the story for Edward Scissorhands and recently co-adapted a new stage version of the film with director and choreographer Matthew Bourne. Thompson also adapted the screenplay for the film version of Wicked Lovely, a bestselling fantasy series, in 2011, but the production was put into turnaround. more…

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