When you think of a Christmas movie, you usually think of a wholesome movie about a family that needs to have more Christmas spirit, but The Nightmare Before Christmas is not at all a Christmas movie. There are so many things that argue that this movie is a Halloween movie. It was released on October 13, 1993, which heavily implies that it was meant to be a Halloween movie.
“In 2017, director Selick definitively declared ‘it’s a Halloween movie’ during a Q&A at Colorado’s Telluride Horror Show film festival…” said RadioTimes writer Patrick Cremona.
This is solid evidence that this movie is a Halloween movie. I also conducted a poll on TikTok to get a better representation of what Gen Z views as Christmas movies, where 74% of people said it was a Halloween movie.
“Personally I think that the nightmare before Christmas is a Halloween movie since the title is talking about an event before Christmas,” said junior Jessica Pacheco. “Not to mention the main character is a skeleton.”
Even though there are Christmas parts in this movie, it does heavily focus on Halloween and scary aspects of this movie. Also, the classic art style that Tim Burton has is definitely more spooky than cute and wholesome, which also gives it more of a Halloween feeling. Tim Burton is also known for his unique style in movies such as Corpse Bride and Frankenweenie, which have such a similar art style and a spooky factor to them as well.
There is also a song in the movie called “This is Halloween”, which so clearly features Halloween prominently. This movie can also be quite scary for smaller children, while Christmas movies should not be scary. There are scary images in the movie that would definitely frighten little children. Whenever the boogie man was on screen he definitely scared the children who watched. When I was younger I thought that it was the scariest movie there was.
Given the date the movie was released and what the director of the movie has said, I can confidently say that The Nightmare Before Christmas is a Halloween movie.
