National Film Vault

FILM NOTES

Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas was released by Touchstone Pictures in October 1993, produced through Burton's collaboration with director Henry Selick and stop-motion studio Skellington Productions. The film marked a turning point for feature animation, demonstrating that the painstaking craft of stop-motion could sustain a full theatrical release with genuine emotional weight. Its dark aesthetic and Danny Elfman score gave it a lasting cultural presence well beyond its initial audience.

This cell, titled Mummy Boy, captures Jack Skellington — voiced by Chris Sarandon — partially obscured by the ornate wooden gate structure of Halloween Town, its ironwork and decorative chains framing the composition. The Mayor, voiced by Glenn Shadix, appears near the same gate, placing both figures in one of the film's characteristically shadowed civic spaces.