Jack Skellington (Nightmare Before Christmas (Neca)) Review

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Jack Skellington (Nightmare Before Christmas (Neca)) Review

Jack Skellington
Nightmare Before Christmas (Neca) (Neca)There's no denying The Nightmare Before Christmas is a very iconic movie, thanks to its animation, its songs, its acting… well, just about everything about it is great, and it's the ideal film to watch during Christmas, Halloween, or whenever. Its popularity has led to plenty of merchandise, notably by NECA; they did a ton of different products with the license, but their action figure line is what fans recognize most. Years later, Diamond Select got the license, and is still putting out a huge, expansive line of figures, not to mention Super7 doing a few in the same scale. NECA announced back in 2022 that they would be doing figures again, much to everyone's surprise, and they began hitting stores just a few months ago. Kicking off my coverage of the line is the Pumpkin King himself: Jack Skellington.

NECA was still doing clamshells when they first had the NBX license, and they long stopped doing those because they're too hard to open. The traditional Ultimate packaging is pretty simple in design here, with a sketchy drawing of Jack on the front, and it fits Burton's style and the film's aesthetic. The shots of the figure on every other side, including the reverse side of the "fifth-panel" cover, do a good job showing off nearly everything included, and once you get the tape and ties out, it's easy to get everything out of the box.

Jack has a simple design, with his skull head being very circular, but sometimes it's not easy to make a recreation of his likeness look right (see Super7's Ultimate Jack for an example). NECA did plenty of Jack heads before, both as figures and as other stuff like mugs and lights, and 20 years later, they not only did just as good, but better than before. Kyle Windrix, Marty Henley, and Andrew Lawson all worked together on him, with Lawson being mainly responsible for the heads, and the end result is really accurate to the film. The default happy portrait for Jack is great as long as you don't mind the seam line running through the back of the head, with both the traditional skull teeth on the lips, and the crooked yellow teeth inside of the mouth, hence why the head is sculpted as two parts.

It's common for NECA figures to have extra heads, usually one or two, but Jack has seven extra heads! He also has a closed-mouth smile, a shocked head, two sinister heads, one with a closed mouth and one with an open mouth, a worried head, a bemused head, and a scary face. Jack's a very expressive character, so it makes sense NECA would want to include as many heads as possible. The paint on all of them is clean, but sometimes the teeth are more white than yellow. It can be a little hard to check since three of the heads are behind the main tray, so look closely and make sure you got a good one.

Jack stands tall at 8", and he's a very slender guy as well. The proportions match the model used in the film well, with the limbs being a bit thinner than the earlier Jack figures, and the articulation (which I'll go over below) blends in with the sculpt well. Parts such as the hands, coattails, and bow tie are made of soft plastic, so that you won't have to worry about jabbing yourself when handling him. The paint on the body is very clean as well, including the suit stripes and lines for the hand bones. Some of the lines on the hands don't match up with the sculpt, but the lines are at least neat, with no bleed or fuzziness.

The Nightmare Before Christmas line was NECA's first attempt at super-articulated figures, but poor quality held them back. They've gotten a lot better since, and the improvement since 2004 is very clear. Jack has a ball-jointed head and neck, swivel/hinge shoulders, elbows, wrists, and knees, ball hips, and barbell chest and ankles. All of the joints move well, and the heads and hands swap with no issues. He still has pretty thin arms and legs, so I'd take some care posing him, and use heat in case anything feels like it's not moving well enough. And since the long legs and small feet mean he won't be able to stand up on his own, a clear oval stand is included. It's good for when he's standing straight up, but in more dynamic poses, he may not be as able to balance as well.

Jack's extra heads make up a good chunk of his accessories, but there's plenty of other stuff with him. He comes with four pairs of hands - relaxed, pointing, grasping, carrying - and they swap easily, with the soft plastic ensuring you won't have to worry about breaking a finger or two. His ghostly dog friend Zero is included, and the sculpt and paint on him are great, right down to the jack-o’-lantern nose, and the semi-transparent plastic used for him brings out the ghostliness of his design. The old Zero only had a swivel head, but this one upgrades it to a barbell peg, and the base he plugs into is also a ball joint, letting him "fly" in various angles. The two pumpkins and the jack-in-the-box are lifted from the old Jack, but these are all-new sculpts, no reuse here. The jack-in-the-box is articulated as well, with a ball-jointed pumpkin head, a swivel at the base of the spring, and a turning crank. Since the spring can come out, I'm left wondering why NECA didn't make the lid move as well. Lastly, there's a picture frame with a drawing of Jack in it, a nice extra we haven't gotten before.

NECA going back to Nightmare Before Christmas figures is quite a surprise, given Diamond's line is still going on, but NECA has the advantage of more stuff being included and wider availability. Jack 2.0 shows just how much better they've gotten since the 2000s, and all the extra heads and other parts give you plenty of ways to display him. Hopefully, NECA gets to more characters beyond the four out so far, but if this is the most we'll be getting, I have no problem getting some of the older figures or Diamond's offerings.

- 3/31/25