Halloween has come and gone and the holiday season is just over the horizon. While we munch on the remainder of our Halloween candy and start listening to Christmas music in November, we also turn our attention away from spooky Halloween flicks and onto more festive, heartwarming, Christmas movies. But wait! There’s a movie that fits both holidays, and that movie is The Nightmare Before Christmas. Due to its plot involving both holidays, people have long wondered if it should be considered more of a Halloween or a Christmas movie. It’s a very unorthodox movie that you can’t quite place. So, I’m here to debate whether The Nightmare Before Christmas is more of a Halloween or a Christmas movie and lay down the facts.
it’s a halloween movie: the halloween aesthetic
The majority of this movie takes place in Halloweentown, which, of course, has a creepy Halloween aesthetic with Halloween characters like skeletons (such as the titular character), ghosts, vampires, witches, and other weird monsters. When you watch this movie, it is impossible to not be put in the spooky spirit.
It’s a christmas movie: the plot centers around jack getting into the christmas spirit
Even if The Nightmare Before Christmas has a very Halloween-ish aesthetic, you cannot deny that Christmas is very central to the plot. I mean, the movie involves Jack getting into the Christmas spirit, trying to figure out how Christmas works, and him trying to explain Christmas to the residents of Halloweentown. He even tries to take Santa’s place and deliver presents. As you can see, a lot of this movie’s plot revolves around Jack getting into the Christmas spirit.
It’s a halloween movie: the movie was released around halloween
Another fact supporting The Nightmare Before Christmas being a Halloween movie is that it was released a couple of days before Halloween, on October 29th, 1993, which was just in time for the spooky season.
It’s a christmas movie: the movie takes place in november
However, despite the movie being released on Halloween, most of the movie takes place after Halloween and in between Halloween and Christmas, so mostly it takes place in November. Also, the climax of the movie takes place on Christmas.
It’s a Halloween movie: the people who made the Film consider it a halloween movie
A very important point that supports The Nightmare Before Christmas being a Halloween movie is that even the people who made the movie consider it to be a Halloween movie, including Danny Elfman and Henry Selick. if anything, this proves that it was meant to be a Halloween movie.
Conclusion
In my humble opinion, The Nightmare Before Christmas works best as a Halloween movie. The spooky aesthetic, creepy songs, and even the people who worked on it support the idea that it was supposed to be a Halloween movie, making it hard for me not to get in the spooky spirit when I watch it. But no matter what I think, this movie can be for whatever holiday you want it to be! We’re all entitled to our own opinions and entitled to enjoy The Nightmare Before Christmas any time of the year we want to. Even though everyone has their opinions about what holiday this movie is for, the real beauty of this movie is that it can be interpreted to be whatever you want.