The approaching holiday season means the resurfacing of the haunting debate regarding the Tim Burton classic, The Nightmare Before Christmas. Is it a Halloween movie? Is it a Christmas movie? Is it both? Or neither? It seems like no one can ever agree on the answer. I’m here to serve the reality of this scary, seasonal screenplay: It is definitively a Halloween movie. 

To solve this age-old debate the first question we must answer is what holidays are represented? How many do we actually see in the film? In the world At the very start of the movie we get an overhead pan of seven-holiday doors. The doors shown were those representing Independence Day, Halloween, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, St. Patrick’s Day, and Valentine’s Day. However, while all of these holidays are shown we only ever view the inside world behind two of the doors. Of course, those are the doors leading to Christmas Town and Halloween Town.

So now that it’s been determined that the debate is 100% between the two holidays, now we must use the evidence presented in the movie to make a decision.

After the pan of the doors, we open to the song “This is Halloween”, a song sung by the citizens of Halloween Town about their beloved holiday. It should be noted that all of the main characters reside in Halloween Town, a town in which all of its inhabitants are creepy, ghoulish creatures. We also witnessed a Christmas-themed song “What’s This”. This song is when our main character, Jack Skellington (a skeleton..shocker) discovers Christmas Town.

Eventually, Jack does introduce Christmas to the townspeople of Halloween Town. However, it is interpreted through a Halloween lens; examples of this include scary things in presents, severed feet in stockings, and “Sandy Claws”.

All in all, it is my conclusion that The Nightmare Before Christmas is in fact a Halloween movie. I find that the style of Tim Burton overall fits the Halloween theme more so than Christmas. Though it may not suit the winter holidays as well, The Nightmare Before Christmas is a great movie that deserves to be watched all year round.