By Gavin Bowyer and Wyatt Spears
Ah yes! Finally, it is time for the notorious Jack Skellington and his ghoulish goons, the abductors of Jolly Ol’ Saint Nick, beautifully produced as a wondrous story by the infamous Tim Burton in the impossibly masterful claymation, stop-motion film The Nightmare Before Christmas. Now for those of you who have not yet feasted your eyes upon Tim Burton’s timelessly spooky, twistedly merry, age-old masterpiece brought to you by the creator of Edward Scissorhands and Frankenweeney, then go check this movie out. But we are not here to tell you how great it is, nor why you should watch it, no no no, we are here to settle this movie-night dilemma, film festival conundrum, video-viewing predicament: Is The Nightmare Before Christmas a Christmas or Halloween movie?
To many, this seems like no big deal, simply, “Meh. I’ll watch it whenever,” with it merely a backup movie for those holiday nights when you and your family are unsure of what to watch. Perhaps, however, you instead face the aforementioned dilemma, of not knowing when to properly view the film, and fall back to a system of watching it twice because you are indecisive. The answer to this problem is simple: break down the basic factors of the movie, accounting for its time period, characters, and even director, all to decide what holiday this movie belongs to, so you can get this, well-made and traditional, but immensely blasé due to its repetition, to a manageable 1 screening per year, movie.
The Nightmare Before Christmas takes place in “Halloween Town,” before, well, Christmas, as the title suggests. Throughout, we see Jack Skellington, our conflicted, kind-hearted, but monstrous protagonist, as he experiences Christmas through the lens of single-minded knowledge of Halloween. You see, Halloween is all Halloween Town knows, with the characters working sorta as elves do in Christmas movies (only making Christmas toys), except the Halloween Town civilians don’t have any knowledge of the outside world. Thus, Jack’s revelation of Christmas motivates him to capture Santa Claus and make Christmas like Halloween. Now yes, this does seem Halloween-themed, but if you really look into it, it obviously is not. The toys that replace the Christmas ones may be scary, and the town may be of spooky characters, but based on the time of the movie, we are able to deduce that it is Christmas. After the capture of Saint Nick, the Halloween characters create Christmas with their own monstrous spin, albeit unknowing of the reason, and celebrate with Jack taking off and delivering presents. There it is in broad daylight, Jack Skellington DELIVERS CHRISTMAS GIFTS in the movie. Therefore, without a doubt, the movie must take place during the merry winter holiday and not during the haunting fall festivities.
Honestly, this wasn’t that difficult to figure out and didn’t require that much evidence, but still there is an answer. Bearing this in mind, it is safe to conclude that you may now begin to watch this movie as purely a Christmas movie, simply with Halloween flair, and maybe even go to your parents and say, “You were wrong, I was right. Eat it [redacted].” All in all, The Nightmare Before Christmas is a Christmas movie, so now enjoy the next while of straight Christmas until the New Year.