Pumpkins Scream in the Dead of Night

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Henry Selick's stop-motion masterpiece The Nightmare Before Christmas, which is turning 25 today, was on TV the other day (it's kind of on TV all the time now, even not during the holidays) and I stopped and watched a few minutes (as I do every time I stumble across it) and I was smacked with this vision memory of me being forced to watch this movie a dozen times a day when I worked at a video store in high school since it was the only horror-adjacent movie I was allowed to play on the TV sets around the store for Halloween. Couldn't have some five-year-old stumble upon the meat-hook scene in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre or anything, which, well, boo on you, Video Store Manager -- that's the exact opposite of the reason for the season. Anyway it made me realize that it's entirely possible I've seen The Nightmare Before Christmas more than any other movie. And yet I have never grown tired of it. I will still stop and watch it whenever I find it on TV. And so a happy 25 to a perfect thing -- head over to The Film Experience for this week's NBC-themed edition of our "Beauty vs Beast" contest...