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 Disney. The stop-motion animated feature arrived at a moment when the technique was largely absent from mainstream cinema, and its success helped reestablish handcrafted animation as a viable theatrical form. The film's visual language, rooted in German Expressionism and Burton's own illustrated sensibility, gave it a durability that has sustained audience interest across three decades.

This three-frame cell captures Lock, Shock and Barrel amid the angular wooden structures of Halloween Town, their silhouettes set against a deep purple sky. The trio appears in consistent composition across all three frames, preserving a quiet moment of the mischievous trick-or-treaters in their natural environment. For collectors, the repeated framing offers a rare opportunity to study the precision and subtle variation inherent in stop-motion production.