The holidays can ignite a lot of debates when friends and families find themselves together and tensions rise, though not all arguments center around hot-button issues. Potentially the most popular debate among movie fans every December is about whether or not Die Hard can be considered a Christmas movie, yet another debate is highly contested: Is The Nightmare Before Christmas a Halloween movie or a Christmas movie? In the 30+ years since the movie’s release, the film’s following has grown more passionate and the conflicting perspectives have grown more devout about the best time of year to enjoy the Henry Selick-directed experience. With Halloween a few weeks in our rearview and with American audiences still having to get through Thanksgiving before the Christmas season heads into high gear, there’s no better time to watch the beloved adventure.
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Released on October 29, 1993, the Disney movie was primed to be an outing that young audiences could have in honor of Halloween that didn’t dive deep into the more terrifying components of All Hallow’s Eve. In this sense, it’s easy to see how audiences could prefer to enjoy the movie in October, as it marks the anniversary month of its release. Still, a release date doesn’t necessarily dictate the best season in which to celebrate a movie, as confirmed by how Hocus Pocus was also released in 1993, though it hit theaters earlier that summer. The actual narrative of The Nightmare Before Christmas, it’s worth noting, also embraces that idea of honoring the aftermath of Halloween.
The opening scenes of the movie take place in Halloween Town, a community dedicated to bringing the holiday to life as lavishly as possible, in the immediate aftermath of October 31st. Jack Skellington (Christopher Sarandon) is considered the Pumpkin King, who leads the festivities. While he appreciates the attention earned on Halloween, he yearns for something more, and after embarking on a literal and figurative journey of discovery, finds himself in Christmas Town. As implied by the name, this is a community devoted to the majestic and delightful components of celebrating Christmas, which fully enchant Jack. Despite his best intentions of embracing the spirit of Christmas, Jack and his fellow Halloween Town residents can’t avoid their macabre instincts, which include kidnapping Santa Claus.
With the film itself culminating on Christmas, there’s also a case to be made that annual viewings should be made in December. Much like Jack himself, audiences become entranced by the iconography of Christmas, including Christmas trees, reindeer, stockings, and multi-colored lights. We wouldn’t fault anyone who prefers to enjoy the experience closer to December 25th, especially those who tend to be a fan of spookier celebrations.
As far as the figures who helped bring the movie to life are concerned, The Nightmare Before Christmas is worth being celebrated for both holidays.
“Why can’t it be both?” Sarandon shared with ComicBook back in 2019 when asked about the debate. “I know that there are a lot of fans who come up to me saying, ‘We watch it every Halloween,’ and I have fans that come up and say, ‘We watch it every Christmas,’ I have fans who come up and say, ‘We watch it at both Christmas and Halloween.’ What’s the debate? It’s what pleases the people who watch it most, the audience, that’s what’s important. It’s the fans. It’s the people who it had a profound effect on over these years.”
In 2022, Selick similarly shared with ComicBook, “At the very beginning, when Tim Burton came up with this original idea in the ’80s at Disney, when it was intended to be a half-hour TV special in stop-motion, at the very beginning, I saw it as a mashup, that it’s both. Then subsequently, when we actually made the film as a feature, I might have tended to answer one way, but I’ve arrived at the original feeling. It is a mashup. It is a perfect collision between those two holidays. So there’s no better answer than both. It is both, and it’s its own thing. It’s a great celebration of Halloween that can last all the way into Christmas.”
The Nightmare Before Christmas is currently streaming on Disney+.
Do you think the movie is a Halloween or a Christmas movie? Contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!
