This past Friday I attended Rose House’s showing of Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. This has been one of my favorite films for a long time now, so I was really excited to be able to see it with the house (especially so close to Halloween!). I’ve always been a sucker for animated movies, especially stop motion, so I was thrilled to be able to re-experience it.

Stop-motion is a fascinating art-form. I remember in 9th grade, we had an assignment to create a short stop motion movie on the process of cellular meiosis, and I think that’s when I became infatuated with it—it’s such a labor of love, and I genuinely wish more films would use it. It lends such an interesting aesthetic to a movie that I genuinely don’t think can be achieved through normal animation or live-action. I think my inability to articulate exactly why I feel this way plays a big role in my fascination with it. When this aesthetic is combined with the already fascinating world of Halloween Town, however, especially the iconic curled hill with the moon, it’s no wonder that an entire generation fell in love with this movie.

I always find myself wondering when the next movie with the same level of artistic impact will come out (or at least, when I’ll see it). It’s tough to find these movies in a world with so much media to consume, and sometimes I worry that I’ll miss the next media property that I’ll fall in love with. It can definitely be tough to curate, but that certainly doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try!