By Daniel Hoyer
It’s one of Tim Burton’s most popular animated films (even though he didn’t direct it; it was based off of a poem he wrote in 1982 while working as a Disney animator, although he was a producer and co-writer) and also the subject of probably the most dividing argument concerning seasonal movies: “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” Is it a Halloween or a Christmas movie? Today, that argument will finally be settled.
One big argument is how this supposed “Halloween” movie spends the majority of its runtime centered around Christmas, and it’s true. In the movie, Jack Skellington comes across the holiday trees, and eventually the Christmas tree, at about thirteen minutes in, and there’s still around an hour left in the movie, so it would make sense that a movie that takes more than two-thirds of its time centered around Christmas would be labelled as a Christmas movie.
However, on the other side of the coin, what kind of a Christmas movie has a giant, living skeleton accompanied by his (adorable) ghost dog and has a love interest of a ragdoll made by a Dr. Frankenstein knock-off and a villain of a burlap sack, which, we find out, is made up entirely of bugs and who’s obsessed with gambling. Also, the muted color palette of Halloween Town is a strong backbone for this argument as well.
After having taken a dip into both sides of the argument, it’s time a conclusion was made. I want to make this clear that this is my take on this argument and there are going to be other people who will have different views on this. It’s important that you respect their decision and realize that they are allowed to have a different opinion than you (which I may or may not be guilty of forgetting).
In my eyes, it’s a Halloween movie that “crosses over” with Christmas. To understand what this means, you have to look at TV shows and the cross over episodes that occasionally appear. Take “Family Guy” x “The Simpsons” for example. You start the episode with Family Guy and all the generic characters and then, skipping all of the plot, the Griffins end up traveling to Springfield where they interact with “The Simpsons” characters. Of course the episode was officially aired on “Family Guy,” so that obviously shows that it’s a “Family Guy” episode, but the most important thing is that the episode begins with Peter, Lois and the others and then they go to Springfield to meet “The Simpsons” characters. What I’m trying to say is how the episode starts off with “Family Guy” and follows those characters throughout Springfield and the rest of the episode.
Bringing this back to “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” you can see how the movie starts off with Halloween and then follows those characters as they navigate throughout this brand new idea known as Christmas; it’s essentially an episode of Halloween guest starring Christmas.
Whether it’s a Christmas movie, a Halloween movie or some combination of both, it’s important to realize the community that this movie makes and how timeless and iconic they made this movie and how you can essentially watch it any time of the year and have a good time, which, in my opinion, should be the goal of any movie, seasonal or not.
