Jack Skellington is preparing for Halloween. When
Jack Skellington is preparing for Halloween. When Oogie Boogie hears from his henchmen Lock, Shock and Barrel that Jack is scarier than him, he sends them to kidnap Jack. They, however, bring Sally, a rag doll-like creature who is Doctor Finkelstein’s new assistant and has a crush on Jack.
On Halloween, Jack finds the town deserted and hears from the Mayor that everyone is hiding from a bug infestation. Lock, Shock and Barrel wreak havoc around the town. Along the way, Jack helps the townspeople and in return collects weapons, upgrades, and information. Jack learns of Oogie Boogie and that he lives under the treehouse on the edge of town.
Jack confronts Oogie and learns that he is behind the whole mess and wants to turn Halloween into Crawloween. Jack and Oogie battle to decide who will rule the town. Oogie claims he will win and turn Halloween Town into Bug Town. Jack defeats Oogie and orders him to fear him and not to leave the lair. Jack rescues Sally, meeting her for the first time, and Halloween goes ahead as planned. Oogie vows to get his revenge.
Halloween Town is a fantasy world populated by various monsters and supernatural beings associated with the holiday. Jack Skellington, the well-respected “Pumpkin King,” leads the town in organizing the annual Halloween celebrations. Unbeknownst to his subjects however, he has grown tired of the same annual routine this year and wants something new. Wandering in the woods the next morning, he discovers several trees containing doors, which lead to other holiday-themed worlds (Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, Independence Day, Valentine’s Day and Saint Patrick’s Day). Stumbling through the one leading to Christmas Town and awed by the unfamiliar holiday, Jack develops an obsession for it.
Jack returns home to share his discovery with his friends and neighbors. They relate to Christmas Town’s ruler, Santa Claus, or “Sandy Claws” as Jack mistakenly knows him as, but are unfamiliar with the concept of Christmas and conflate its customs with the Halloween traditions that they are used to. Frustrated, Jack isolates himself in his house and studies Christmas further, intent upon finding a way to rationally explain it. When days of study and experimentation accomplish nothing, however, Jack abandons his attempts to understand Christmas and decides to “improve” the holiday instead.
Jack announces that Halloween Town will take over Christmas this year and assigns Christmas-themed jobs, such as singing carols, making presents and building a sleigh pulled by skeletal reindeer, to various residents. Sally, the feminine creation of local mad scientist Doctor Finkelstein, experiences a vision detailing that their efforts will end disastrously. Jack, whom she secretly loves, dismisses her warnings and instructs her to make a Santa Claus suit for him. He also tasks mischievous trick-or-treating trio Lock, Shock and Barrel with abducting Santa; however, he orders them not to involve his long-time rival and their superior, Oogie Boogie, a bogeyman with a passion for gambling, in their plot.
When Lock, Shock and Barrel bring Santa to Halloween Town, Jack tells Santa that he will take care of Christmas this year and orders the trio to keep Santa safe. However, they disobey Jack’s orders and bring Santa to Oogie, who plots to play a game with Santa’s life at stake. Meanwhile, despite her best efforts, Sally is unable to stop Jack from proceeding with his plan. As Jack departs to deliver presents in the real world, she attempts to rescue Santa from Oogie, only to be captured herself.
Unbeknownst to Jack at first, his presents terrify the real world’s populace, who contact the local authorities and are instructed by them to lock down their homes and residences for protection. When word spreads about Jack’s presumed wrongdoings, the military is alerted and Jack is shot down by them, causing him to crash into a nearby cemetery. While the residents of Halloween Town believe that he is dead, Jack actually survived the ordeal. Bemoaning the disaster that he has caused, he realizes that he enjoyed the experience nonetheless, reigniting his love for Halloween, but must act fast to set things right.
Halloween Town is a fantasy world populated by various monsters and supernatural beings associated with the holiday. Jack Skellington, the well-respected “Pumpkin King,” leads the town in organizing the annual Halloween celebrations. Unbeknownst to his subjects however, he has grown tired of the same annual routine this year and wants something new. Wandering in the woods the next morning, he discovers several trees containing doors, which lead to other holiday-themed worlds (Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, Independence Day, Valentine’s Day and Saint Patrick’s Day). Stumbling through the one leading to Christmas Town and awed by the unfamiliar holiday, Jack develops an obsession for it.
Jack returns home to share his discovery with his friends and neighbors. They relate to Christmas Town’s ruler, Santa Claus, or “Sandy Claws” as Jack mistakenly knows him as, but are unfamiliar with the concept of Christmas and conflate its customs with the Halloween traditions that they are used to. Frustrated, Jack isolates himself in his house and studies Christmas further, intent upon finding a way to rationally explain it. When days of study and experimentation accomplish nothing, however, Jack abandons his attempts to understand Christmas and decides to “improve” the holiday instead.
Jack announces that Halloween Town will take over Christmas this year and assigns Christmas-themed jobs, such as singing carols, making presents and building a sleigh pulled by skeletal reindeer, to various residents. Sally, the feminine creation of local mad scientist Doctor Finkelstein, experiences a vision detailing that their efforts will end disastrously. Jack, whom she secretly loves, dismisses her warnings and instructs her to make a Santa Claus suit for him. He also tasks mischievous trick-or-treating trio Lock, Shock and Barrel with abducting Santa; however, he orders them not to involve his long-time rival and their superior, Oogie Boogie, a bogeyman with a passion for gambling, in their plot.
When Lock, Shock and Barrel bring Santa to Halloween Town, Jack tells Santa that he will take care of Christmas this year and orders the trio to keep Santa safe. However, they disobey Jack’s orders and bring Santa to Oogie, who plots to play a game with Santa’s life at stake. Meanwhile, despite her best efforts, Sally is unable to stop Jack from proceeding with his plan. As Jack departs to deliver presents in the real world, she attempts to rescue Santa from Oogie, only to be captured herself.
Unbeknownst to Jack at first, his presents terrify the real world’s populace, who contact the local authorities and are instructed by them to lock down their homes and residences for protection. When word spreads about Jack’s presumed wrongdoings, the military is alerted and Jack is shot down by them, causing him to crash into a nearby cemetery. While the residents of Halloween Town believe that he is dead, Jack actually survived the ordeal. Bemoaning the disaster that he has caused, he realizes that he enjoyed the experience nonetheless, reigniting his love for Halloween, but must act fast to set things right.
Upon returning home, Jack rescues Santa and Sally, then confronts Oogie and defeats him by unraveling a thread holding his cloth form together, causing all of the bugs inside Oogie to spill out and reduce him to nothing. Jack then apologizes to Santa, who scolds him for the trouble he caused, as well as ignoring Sally’s warnings. As Santa departs, however, both he and Sally assure Jack that Christmas can still be saved.
Santa resumes his yearly duties as he replaces Jack’s presents with genuine ones, while all of Halloween Town celebrates Jack’s survival and return. To assure Jack that there are no hard feelings between them, Santa brings a snowfall to the town, thereby bringing the Christmas spirit upon it and, in a way, fulfilling Jack’s original dream. The citizens finally realize the true meaning of Christmas, while Jack and Sally declare their love for each other.
Upon returning home, Jack rescues Santa and Sally, then confronts Oogie and defeats him by unraveling a thread holding his cloth form together, causing all of the bugs inside Oogie to spill out and reduce him to nothing. Jack then apologizes to Santa, who scolds him for the trouble he caused, as well as ignoring Sally’s warnings. As Santa departs, however, both he and Sally assure Jack that Christmas can still be saved.
Santa resumes his yearly duties as he replaces Jack’s presents with genuine ones, while all of Halloween Town celebrates Jack’s survival and return. To assure Jack that there are no hard feelings between them, Santa brings a snowfall to the town, thereby bringing the Christmas spirit upon it and, in a way, fulfilling Jack’s original dream. The citizens finally realize the true meaning of Christmas, while Jack and Sally declare their love for each other.
Jack Skellington once again feels Halloween has become dull and repetitive. He talks with Dr. Finkelstein about improving the next Halloween with new scares and discoveries. The doctor gives Jack the “Soul Robber”, a green, whip-like weapon. He then leaves town to look for new frights, leaving the doctor in charge, and the equally bored Lock, Shock, and Barrel take advantage of Jack’s absence to revive Oogie Boogie, who immediately begins plotting his revenge. On December 23, Sally, a prisoner in Dr. Finkelstein’s laboratory, manages to send a magical paper airplane to find Jack to warn him of what has happened.
Jack returns to Halloween Town in the afternoon on Christmas Eve and is immediately attacked by monsters. After fending them off with the Soul Robber, Jack learns of Oogie’s revival and that Dr. Finkelstein had caused the citizens to boobytrap the entire town. In the town hall, Jack finds and confronts Oogie’s shadow. After defeating the shadow, he finds the Halloween Holiday Door.
After making the town square safe, Jack learns that Oogie’s monsters had kidnapped Sally and taken her to the cemetery. Jack fights through Oogie’s monsters as he tries to find where they’ve taken him, despite Lock’s best attempts to fend him off. He finds Sally in a crypt where a giant spider clings her to the ceiling and attacks Jack. Jack defeats the spider, saves Sally, and finds the Valentine’s Day Holiday Door. When Jack and Sally walk out of the crypt, she gives Jack the key to Dr. Finkelstein’s laboratory and gives him the idea to use his Pumpkin King powers to defeat Oogie’s monsters.
Despite Shock’s attempts to stop Jack, he makes it to the doctor’s lair at the top of his tower, and finds that all of his evil actions were because Oogie had replaced his brain. Fending off the doctor’s deadly machines, Jack returns him to normal by switching his brain back, claiming the St. Patrick’s Day Holiday Door in the process. With the doctor and Sally’s help, Jack gains his Santa Claus outfit to use booby-trapped presents, which he uses to scare Oogie’s monsters out of possessing the pumpkins in the pumpkin patch. Barrel tries to stop Jack by forcing him to navigate the maze he had created in the pumpkin patch, but Jack makes it through and defeats Barrel and his monsters, claiming the Thanksgiving Holiday Door and the key to the residential district.
After freeing the vampire brothers from Oogie’s curse, they tell him of Oogie’s plan: he had kidnapped the other Holiday Leaders and stolen the Holiday Doors so that they couldn’t return home (which Lock, Shock, and Barrel hid in different areas of the town), and planned to become the Seven Holidays King by taking over the other six holidays as well as Halloween. Jack then rescues the mayor from a cage and confronts Lock, Shock, and Barrel on his roof; after defeating them one last time, claiming the Independence Day Holiday Door, they trigger a trap that sends him into the Oogie Corridor, a subterranean labyrinth filled with lava and booby traps. Jack navigates the corridor and finds a jail where five of the holiday leaders are imprisoned, but Santa is conspicuously absent. At the end of the maze, Jack finds Oogie on a giant roulette wheel, where he says that he plans to take revenge on Santa personally. Jack defeats Oogie, but discovers that it was only his shadow again and that the Holiday Door he was guarding was the Easter door, not the Christmas door.
Jack instructs the mayor to free the other Holiday Leaders, then heads to the Hinterlands, having a heartfelt moment with Sally before navigating the mystic forest to replace the Holiday Doors on their trees. Halfway through the process, Jack fights Oogie’s two strongest monsters and claims the Christmas Door from them, using it to leave for Christmas Town as soon as he finishes.
Jack undoes Oogie’s damage to the town and foils his attempt to kill Santa, and Oogie flies off in Santa’s sleigh, but Sally arrives with the skeleton reindeer and coffin sleigh to give Santa the resources to make his deliveries. Oogie is scared out of the sky by a booby-trapped present that an elf had snuck into the sleigh before takeoff, and he falls into the seven holidays’ junkyard. In a fit of rage, he absorbs the waste and insects in the environment and becomes a giant version of himself to beat Jack. The Pumpkin King defeats Oogie, leaving only an empty patchwork sack as his bugs spill out, and Santa thanks Jack for saving his life and his holiday.
Afterward, Jack realizes that his home and loved ones are something more important than new discoveries.
The crisp autumn air whipped through Halloween Town, carrying the scent of decaying leaves and pumpkin spice. Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King, stood on his balcony, his bony fingers drumming a melancholic rhythm on the railing. Halloween, the grand spectacle he had orchestrated for years, felt stale. A longing for something new, something beyond the predictable chills and thrills, gnawed at his soul.
The next morning, Jack found himself wandering through the shadowy woods, a restless spirit seeking solace in the familiar. He stumbled upon a clearing where gnarled trees held doors, each carved with intricate symbols. Each door whispered promises of a new world, a new holiday. Drawn to a shimmering, gold-leafed door adorned with a star and a wreath of holly, Jack felt a pull he couldn’t resist. The door swung open, revealing the vibrant, sparkling landscape of Christmas Town.
Jack was captivated. The twinkling lights, the joyous carols, the spirit of giving, all painted a picture of festive joy he had never known. He yearned to bring this magical experience to Halloween Town, to transform the familiar chills into something fresh and enchanting.
He returned to Halloween Town, his heart overflowing with the spirit of Christmas. The townspeople, however, remained skeptical. They didn’t understand Christmas, mistaking the concept for a bizarre version of their own holiday. Discouraged, Jack retreated to his home, determined to comprehend Christmas and share its wonder with his people.
He spent days poring over books, studying Christmas traditions, and attempting to understand the magic behind it. He even designed a horrifyingly delightful skeletal reindeer and a sleigh pulled by ghostly horses. Sally, Dr. Finkelstein’s creation and Jack’s secret admirer, witnessed these frantic efforts with a heavy heart. She knew, deep down, that Jack’s obsession with Christmas would lead to disaster.
One fateful day, Jack announced his audacious plan: Halloween Town would take over Christmas. He assigned Christmas-themed roles to his subjects, from carol-singing ghouls to present-wrapping werewolves. Sally, despite her misgivings, dutifully crafted a Santa Claus costume for Jack.
Meanwhile, Jack entrusted the task of kidnapping Santa Claus to the mischievous Lock, Shock, and Barrel. He warned them not to involve Oogie Boogie, a sinister bug-filled sack who was Jack’s rival and their secret master.
As Jack’s Christmas plans unfurled, Sally’s visions intensified, revealing a nightmarish future filled with chaos and despair. Yet, Jack, blinded by his desire for something new, disregarded her warnings.
Lock, Shock, and Barrel, disregarding Jack’s orders, brought Santa to Oogie Boogie. The conniving bug monster saw an opportunity to exploit the situation and turn Halloween Town into his own personal playground.
On Christmas Eve, Jack set off for the real world, his skeletal reindeer pulling a sleigh filled with terrifying gifts. The unsuspecting world was horrified, and news of Jack’s “misdeeds” quickly spread.
Back in Halloween Town, Oogie Boogie, fueled by his ambition, had a plan. He unleashed his monstrous henchmen, turning the town into a chaotic, bug-infested nightmare.
The following Halloween, Jack returned to Halloween Town, finding it eerily quiet. He learned from the Mayor that the entire town was in hiding, fearing a bug infestation. Oogie Boogie, it seemed, had taken over.
Jack ventured into the shadows of Halloween Town, encountering fearsome creatures and deadly traps set by Oogie’s minions. He fought with a newfound determination, collecting weapons and information along the way. The townspeople, witnessing Jack’s bravery and resourcefulness, began to see him as a hero once again.
Finally, he discovered Oogie’s lair, a shadowy treehouse on the edge of town. Oogie emerged, a menacing figure, his burlap sack filled with writhing insects. He explained that he had manipulated the situation, turning Halloween Town into a terrifying Crawloween.
The battle was fierce, a clash of terror and power. Jack, fueled by the love for his town and his desire to right his wrongdoings, unleashed his own brand of fear. In a final, desperate move, he tore a hole in Oogie’s burlap sack, unleashing a torrent of bugs. Oogie, defeated and powerless, retreated to his lair, vowing revenge.
Jack, exhausted but triumphant, freed Sally and the other kidnapped townspeople. Halloween, as planned, went ahead.
And so, Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King, had learned a valuable lesson. The familiar comforts of Halloween Town held a magic of their own. He might have been tempted by the allure of the unknown, but true joy, true magic, lay in the heart of his home, in the love and support of his people.
