How The Night­mare Before Christ­mas became a fes­tive favourite

Is The Night­mare Before Christ­mas a Hal­loween film or a Christ­mas film? As is the case with all films, the answer is in the eye of the behold­er, and yet for many this creepy stop-motion clas­sic remains a key fix­ture in their fes­tive view­ing sched­ule. Fea­tur­ing a singing skele­ton, sin­is­ter toys and bemused chil­dren hold­ing sev­ered heads, the film’s glee­ful­ly macabre tone doesn’t imme­di­ate­ly sug­gest Christ­mas cheer. So what’s the sto­ry behind this unlike­ly fes­tive favourite?

Much of the film’s endur­ing appeal lies in its sig­na­ture musi­cal num­bers. In ​‘What’s This?’, our hero of sorts, Jack Skelling­ton, stum­bles across Christ­mas Town and sees a hol­i­day greet­ings card come to life – snow, fairy lights, fam­i­lies by the fire – and, to quote the char­ac­ter him­self, ​“in my bones I feel the warmth that’s com­ing from inside”. See­ing Christ­mas through the eyes (well, sock­ets) of an out­sider under­lines what it is that makes The Night­mare Before Christ­mas so spe­cial. With so much Christ­mas fare reliant on rehash­ing famil­iar, time­worn fairy tales, here is a film that offers a refresh­ing­ly alter­na­tive and orig­i­nal perspective.

Still, this is by no means your typ­i­cal hol­i­day flick. For one thing, it is gen­uine­ly scary. The unapolo­get­i­cal­ly dark tone, and ghoul­ish char­ac­ters such as Lock, Shock and Bar­rel, con­cerned Dis­ney execs back in 1993 but delight­ed audi­ences. The film’s visu­als are strik­ing too, instant­ly set­ting it apart from its soft­er-edged sea­son­al sta­ble­mates. It’s also a film audi­ences can grow up with, not least because of its adult themes. The wink­ing dia­logue from char­ac­ters like The May­or of Hal­loween Town (“I’m just an elect­ed offi­cial here, I can’t make deci­sions by myself”) adds an extra lay­er to this dark fan­ta­sy tale.

Dis­ney even­tu­al­ly embraced the film, there­by val­i­dat­ing two of main­stream cinema’s most beloved out­liers. Pro­mot­ed as ​‘Tim Burton’s The Night­mare Before Christ­mas’ owing to the Bat­man director’s cre­ative input, the film was actu­al­ly direct­ed by fel­low ani­ma­tor Hen­ry Selick. While the for­mer was bare­ly involved in the phys­i­cal mak­ing of the film, the end prod­uct is a delight­ful mar­riage of their dis­tinct sen­si­bil­i­ties and visu­al styles. Cer­tain­ly one can be for­giv­en for think­ing this world was entire­ly of Burton’s mak­ing, yet it’s the the­atri­cal flour­ish­es and metic­u­lous atten­tion to detail brought by Selick which earned the film its cult fanbase.

A clos­er look at the film’s influ­ences, how­ev­er, unveils a sur­pris­ing­ly tra­di­tion­al inspi­ra­tion. In their orig­i­nal the­atri­cal review, Vari­ety described the film as ​“icon­o­clas­tic and a bit twist­ed, but not at all sub­ver­sive”, and the film has been com­pared favourably to Dr Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christ­mas!, a sim­i­lar­ly strange tale of a mal­con­tent wreck­ing hav­oc on an unsus­pect­ing vil­lage. At a time when the vast major­i­ty of Christ­mas films are fuzzy, non­threat­en­ing affairs, The Night­mare Before Christ­mas seems prac­ti­cal­ly rebel­lious by com­par­i­son; an unlike­ly Yule­tide sta­ple from two vision­ary con­tem­po­rary film­mak­ers who drew heav­i­ly on enchant­i­ng, twist­ed sto­ries from their own childhood