Tim Burton’s animated classic movie, “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” is adored by all ages. The one thing that no one can really agree on: is this movie a Christmas movie or a Halloween movie? This disagreement has spanned decades, generations and continents and still to this day people argue.
A hallmark of the Disney golden age, “The Nightmare Before Christmas”, originally released in 1993. It was an animated musical, featuring the spectacular composition of Danny Elfman, who also worked on Burton’s other stop motion project, “Corpse Bride”. The storyline is a classic, and the characters are still fun and memorable to this day. But, since the story is so well known, the question of where it belongs in algorithms of modern streaming media still has people scratching their heads.
Directors like Henry Selick have said that this is a Halloween film, others still have yet to fully latch onto that explanation. According to an Instagram poll, 38% of students believe that this movie is a Christmas movie. It’s not hard to see why. With the main character, Jack Skellington, wanting to steal Christmas like how Gru tried to steal the moon in the movie “Despicable Me”, most would believe it is about Christmas. Not so much the citizens of Halloween and the spooky season. The main villain of this movie is not Krampus, nor Santa, nor anyone from Christmas, it was the Boogie Man, a creation exclusive to the spooky and fall season of Halloween.
Students have made decisions about the movie. According to Freshman Tobias Bennett, “I think it’s more of a Halloween movie.” Bennett also said that “it’s based more on Halloween, and more of the characters are Halloween themed.”
On the contrary Junior Quintin Bruce said “Technically it’s supposed to be a Christmas movie”. Bruce believes this because “they’re supposed to be taking over Christmas, and it’s the end of Halloween.”
This just goes to show that there is always a second side to even the most beloved or iconic stories. Never think that a personal interpretation of a story is a bad thing, because art is meant to be taken differently and every story has more than one way to been seen.
