It’s that time of year again. No, not Halloween, and no, not Christmas. It’s time for every movie lover to express their extreme and passionate opinion about whether Henry Selick’s beloved classic The Nightmare Before Christmas is a Christmas movie… or a Halloween movie.
The Nightmare Before Christmas, produced by Tim Burton and based on one of his poems, tells the story of Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King of Halloween, who lives in Halloweentown and orchestrates the scariest night of the year, every single year. But he’s suffering from serious artistic burnout, so when he accidentally stumbles into Christmastown, he decides to try his hand at Christmas instead.
The film deftly combines Halloween and Christmas by adding freaky touches to beloved yuletide iconography, like a giant snake instead of a stocking, or a sleigh driven by skeletal reindeer. Even the stop-motion imagery of The Nightmare Before Christmas is a pastiche; before Burton’s film came along, the most famous stop-motion cartoons were beloved Rankin/Bass holiday specials like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town.
Source: IGN.com The Nightmare Before Christmas: Christmas Movie or Halloween Movie?