‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ Turns 30: Tim Burton and Henry Selick’s Vision Has Become A Definitive Halloween Classic

Prepare to sing a nice, loud “This Is Halloween!” this scary season to honor 30 years of The Nightmare Before Christmas. While Christmas may be in the title, there’s no doubt that this Academy Award-nominated 1993 stop-motion animated musical dark fantasy film from Tim Burton and Henry Selick is a bonafide Halloween classic.

The Nightmare Before Christmas takes place in an alternate universe where major U.S. holidays like Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter have their own unique realms accessible by magic doors. One of these doors also leads to Halloween Town, a place populated by monsters whose years revolve around the celebration of Halloween on October 31st and general enthusiasm for all things grotesque, terrifying, and bizarre.

The Town is technically led by a mayor (Glenn Shadix), but the real man about town is Jack Skellington (Chris Sarandon), a skeleton man with a spindly, spider-like figure who looms large as the Town’s designated Skeleton King that is heralded in every Halloween celebration. But the fame isn’t enough to make Jack feel fulfilled, and he embarks on what I believe is a “mid-afterlife crisis” to find new meaning and purpose to shake up the boring same-old routine. Jack then stumbles upon a door that leads him to Christmas Town and is immediately enamored. Upon his return to Halloween Town, Jack proposes that he replace Santa, whom he calls “Sandy Claws,” and that they take over in celebrating Christmas that year.

A charming sort of chaos ensues as we see what it means to celebrate Christmas when your entire existence revolves around Halloween and all things scary. Throwing themselves wholly into preparing for Christmas, the Halloween Town residents create disturbing presents, decorate spindly trees, and thread cobwebs with Christmas lights. Oh, and three little hellion trick-or-treaters kidnap “Sandy Claws” (after first nabbing the poor Easter Bunny by mistake). Because of course they do.

It’s incredible that even three decades later, this movie still feels fresh, truly timeless in its originality and endlessly eye-catching visuals. The movie grossed roughly $50 million at the box office during its initial run back in 1993 — adjusting for inflation, that would be $107MM in 2023 dollars — but really took off, culturally speaking, when it arrived on VHS (and later DVD and Blu-Ray). Over the years, it has been released 9 different times, theatrically. The stop-motion holds up and is such a brilliant visual medium that offers exceptional juxtaposition between Halloween and Christmas both as towns and concepts.

We remember and love old Christmas films like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Santa Claus is Coming to Town as stop-motion holiday hits, and The Nightmare Before Christmas pays homage to their look and feel in its sweet and smooth depiction of Christmas Town. Meanwhile, Halloween Town is a stark contrast, with its dark, severe, and and jerky imagery and animation. Between these textured visuals, the various musical numbers, and clever dialogue, the film remains a perpetual feast for the senses. And what better to celebrate Halloween with than something dark, delicious, and just the right about of creepy?

While taking over for Sandy Claws doesn’t ultimately work out for Jack (which is putting it lightly, considering he’s blown out of the sky by missiles), he still ultimately gets what he wants out of this whole adventure. After saving Santa (Ed Ivory) from near death and brutal insults (“he’s ancient, he’s ugly; I don’t know which is worse”) at the hands of the villainous gambling enthusiast, Oogie Boogie (Ken Page), he makes things right with Sally (Catherine O’Hara), a Frankenstein’s monster who tried to stop Jack from taking over Christmas in order to protect him.

Not only are they able to start fresh and find love, but Jack also finds inspiration in his Christmas exploits with a whole host of new ways to horrify the masses and celebrate Halloween harder than ever before. Santa is even able to salvage Christmas for the kids that Jack inadvertently terrorized and finds it in his big, red heart to forgive Jack and the residents of Halloween Town as he blankets them in a stunning sheet of snow, prompting good humor, Christmas spirit, and singing all around. But even with all this holiday cheer, ultimately in Halloween Town, Halloween always wins, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Watch The Nightmare Before Christmas on Disney+