The big question when it comes to Tim Burton is simple. Is it really meant for a family to sit down and watch or is it the movie of your nightmares?
Tim Burton is a well known director with a few of his popular films being “Edward Scissorhands”, “The Nightmare Before Christmas”, “Beetlejuice”, and even all the “Batman” movies with Michael Keaton. Even though Tim Burton isn’t the most known and most favorite director he still has tons and tons of fans that stick by his side including me.
It is a huge controversy of whether his movies are family friendly or straight up from your nightmares, it is so controversial that he has even had a genre “made” for him called “burtonesque”. Now while this isn’t an actual genre so many people have used it to describe other movies such as “Coraline”, “Monster House”, and “The Addams Family”. This genre is used to describe a movie or a show that has dull color palettes, high contrasts on characters, and a gothic setting/fashion.
So let’s break down one of my favorite Tim Burton movies. We are going to deep dive into the movie “The Nightmare Before Christmas” and if it’s meant to be watched with your family or only with a brave soul.
The Nightmare Before Christmas is a movie that follows that pumpkin king, Jack Skellington, as he tries to find out what is missing in his life in Halloweentown. As he is walking around the woods with his dog Zero, he finds a circle of trees with painted doors on them. The one to catch his eye is the brightest one of all, the Christmas door, he goes into the door trying to find out what it even is. When he gets to Christmas Town he finds out that he wants to make his one christmas this year and fill the void he has. He does this by going home and introducing Christmas to everyone else and in an attempt of making his own version of Christmas, although a few bumps happen along the way. Eventually he ends up bringing santa back and making him fix christmas and never tries again.
While I can see where people come from saying that it shouldn’t be for kids, the art style is a little graphic and some of the creatures in the movie could be scary for little kids, but when you think about it kids can be scared of different things. For example when I was younger I was terrified of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse because of all the characters that were in the show.
So in conclusion I feel like Tim Burton and his movies can be family-friendly as long as your kids don’t get scared super easily with the art style. Another thing about the films is the plot of the story. They aren’t “scary”, they are more intense. The plots are never about murders and gore but the plots are more so about bringing a childhood dog back to life and Batman trying to save the city in the darkness.
