14 Best Horror Movies For Kids

With such a short gap between Halloween and Christmas, it's surprising how long it took for some enterprising soul to conceive of a story which links the two holidays - but it's no surprise that the storyteller to do so was Tim Burton. In the wake of his two Batman movies and Edward Scissorhands, the Goth-friendly filmmaker was at the height of his powers, thus enabling him to get this creepy animated musical into cinemas in 1993.

Creating its own patron of Halloween in the skull-faced Jack Skellington, Burton' story (as realised by screenwriter Caroline Thompson and director Henry Selick) sees the disillusionedmaster of terror fall wildly in love with Christmas, prompting him to lead the inhabitants of Halloween Town to kidnap Santa Claus and take over his holiday for themselves. But the plot is only a small component of the film's appeal, which rests heavily on the iconic appeal of its cast, notably Jack and his Frankenstein-esque love Sally.

However, while The Nightmare Before Christmas may have long since been embraced by Disney (as reflected by the deluge of merchandise they've released in recent years), it's worth remembering the studio were very wary of it on release; fearing it was far too dark for their Walt Disney Animation banner, they instead released it via their subsidiary Touchstone Pictures. Indeed, as well as being the very first feature-length stop-motion animation, it was also the first Disney animated movie not to feature Walt Disney's name before the title.