Tired of scaring humans every October 31 with the same old bag of tricks, Jack Skellington, the spindly king of Halloween Town, kidnaps Santa Claus and plans to deliver shrunken heads and other ghoulish gifts to children on Christmas morning. But as Christmas approaches, Jack's rag-doll girlfriend, Sally, tries to foil his misguided plans.
This movie contains 44 potentially triggering events.
Dr. Finklestein is abusive towards Sally. I cannot remember if there's explicit gaslighting but I know that if parental abuse is a trigger it is best to skip those scenes.
A caged cartoon insect/grasshopper is eaten by the movie's villian. A quick close up on the cage afterwards shows some green slime (presumably guts) in the cage.
The Easter Bunny is kidnapped in one scene. In the "Kidnap the Sandy Claws" number, a bug is also seen being tormented (and eventually eaten off-screen), but there's nothing too far beyond this.
Zero the ghost dog tends to mirror Jack's emotions. There are several scenes where Jack is distraught and Zero looks sad in response. However, Zero is never sad for an extended period of time, and he has plenty of happy moments too.
The villain has many small animal minions or familiars, including snakes. There is also a large boa constrictor-like snake that lives in Halloween Town and has an indiscriminate appetite.
Probably not intended this way but Oogie Boogie gets creepy around Santa in a way that’s played for comedy. At one point he recites lines from the Betty Boop short The Old Man of the Mountain. In the context of that short, these lines were used to sexually harass Betty Boop.
Twice. The first instance is when Sally is making soup, and wheezes after adding one of the ingredients. The second instance is played for laughs; Shock gets mad at Lock for not listening to her, and begins strangling him. He starts choking for a few seconds, and they get in a fight. Both of the instances are very brief, and have no lasting damage/are fairly easy to miss.
Not exactly. If you count the film’s main antagonist, Oogie Boogie, he is a scary bag creature filled with bugs inside him. There are scenes that feature him consuming other insects.
Arguably yes. The villain turns into a bug and the bug is stepped on. It's not clear if the character is actually dead or just temporarily gotten out of the way, since the Halloween characters are already dead for the most part.
The residents of Halloween Town provide plenty of body horror, most of it mild and comedic. A monster clown takes off his face, revealing a black void underneath. A ragdoll stuffed with leaves can detach her limbs and sew them back on. A vampire briefly pulls his eye out of its socket. If there's one example that's actually disturbing, it's Oogie Boogie getting his burlap skin ripped off, exposing the writhing mass of bugs underneath.
Jack, a living skeleton, gets his jaw knocked off at one point, but easily pops it back into place. He also uses one of his own ribs to play fetch with his dog.
In this scene, we don't see the impact of Sally hitting the ground, but we do hear it. There are also a few falls from high places, such as in the scene where Jack's sleigh crashes, but there are no deaths from falling.
It's a Halloween-themed movie, so yes, there are some ghosts. They're very cartoony (and there's even a ghost dog that's pretty cute), so they're probably not going to be that scary unless you have a severe phobia of ghosts.
The scene where Jack scares Lock, Shock, and Barrel is mostly played for laughs, but it is rather sudden. I tend to be easily startled and I've always thought that part was more funny than scary, but I understand why it can be considered a jumpscare.
Technically - no one v*
BUT the fountain in the center or Halloween Town...kinda is? It's like a lizard creature holding its throat and has green water that flows through its mouth because it's a fountain. It has never bothered me, but I figured I'd put this up.
A character is swallowed by a (friendly) snake, but emerges unharmed off-screen. Oogie Boogie eats a frightened bug off-screen and burps out the cage it was in.
The main character starts to lose sense of who he is, deciding that instead of being the face of Halloween he wishes to be the face of Christmas. He changes everything in his life to be Christmas just to realize he missed his old self.
There's a scene where Lock, Shock, and Barrel shove Santa down a narrow chute, which I can see being pretty intense for those who are claustrophobic. This scene is about a minute long, and we see some visuals from inside the chute as well.
Sally intentionally jumps from a high place in one scene, though she has no suicidal intentions; she is simply trying to leave a building. See "does someone fall to their death?" for more details.
Two blurry shots, however; one when Jack crashes into a sign and becomes slightly dazed, and another when Santa is let out of a bag. Both of these visuals only last a few seconds and are not very intense.
“Everybody scream! Everybody SCREAM! In our town of Halloween!” This is basically Screaming People: The Movie. If screams really bother you that much I’m not sure what you should do. With that said, some instances are bigger than others. In particular, some screams during the opening musical number I just mentioned, various incidents of Santa screaming in Oogie Boogie’s lair, Jack screaming at Lock, Shock, and Barrel, Oogie Boogie screaming at Santa, and the screams of people who received scary Christmas presents.
Jack Skellington is watched by Sally in the graveyard scene, however it is cartoonish and reasonable because Jack is singing. Another scene is when Jack is in the Christmas world and he goes into the children’s bedroom and watches them sleep, which can be more distressing because it’s an adult watching children sleep.
Witch archetype with pointed black hats and large noses (imagery rooted in medieval antisemitism). Most people aren’t aware of the connotations but they exist.
No, but Lock, Shock, and Barrel are sometimes collectively referred to as "Oogie's Boys", despite Shock being female. It is not done maliciously at all.
In the scene where Santa is being brought to Halloween Town, his captors briefly refer to him as large and heavy. There are also a few other characters who are fairly rotund in shape and their body types are used as a mild visual gag (the Mayor has a few brief instances of this), but there is nothing too bad.
Anti-Asian caricatures with slits for eyes briefly appear. Oogie Boogie is Black-coded and is portrayed as a cruel, scary, and somewhat sexualizing villain. Finklestein is the “disabled villain” trope and the only character with a confirmed disability.
Most characters in this movie are monsters/creatures, so they don't really have races. The closest thing I can think of is a character with a black voice actor who is the only known death in the movie, but this was likely a coincidence.
Christmas and Easter are present, but not in an overtly religious manner. The farthest it goes is depicting Santa Claus, who is based on Saint Nicholas.
In one scene, Oogie Boogie tries to get somewhat sexual with Sally as he finds her leg sticking out, but it’s one of her removed limbs in which she used as a decoy distraction to rescue Sandy Claws. Oogie Boogie is shown to tickle her leg and make weird noises that indicate that he’s into her.
In the setting of this movie, Santa Claus and other popular elements of Christmas (e.g. flying reindeer, Santa's elves, Santa's workshop, Santa's Sleigh) are all real.
The movie is animated rather than live action, and there is no realistic gore. A character loses some of her limbs on two occasions, but she is a Frankenstein's monster-esque/rag doll-like character, and none of this causes her any pain or distress. Her limbs are sewn back on. There is no blood because she is made of leaves.