A wooden boy, a mouse with seven heads, and the weirdest Christmas fever dream you'll ever have.
It is Christmas Eve, and the Stahlbaum family is happily unwrapping their Christmas gifts. After all the merriment, seven-year-old Marie receives a very special gift--a mysterious Nutcracker--from her beloved Godfather Drosselmeier. When the house falls dark and silent, Marie discovers that this is no ordinary Nutcracker, but Godfather Drosselmeier's nephew, who was transformed into a wooden toy by the curse of the evil Madame Mouserink. To break the curse, the Nutcracker must win the love of Marie and defeat the malicious, seven-headed Mouse King.
Practical Effects
That janky 90s animation style hits different now.
Score
Tchaikovsky: the only thing they didn't cheap out on.
Director
Takashi Masunaga
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
This was a Canadian-Japanese co-production from Jetlag Productions, the same studio behind those janky '90s 'Enchanted Tales' that haunted Blockbuster shelves.
The original E.T.A. Hoffmann story is significantly darker—Marie actually cuts herself on the nutcracker and has fever dreams about becoming a princess, which this version mercifully skips.
US
