'The Nightmare Before Christmas' is my number one biggest

Host: The studio was half-shadow, half-magic — a sanctuary of dim light and scattered color. The smell of paint, candle wax, and faint vanilla hung in the air. Sketches covered the walls — some tender, some eerie, all hauntingly beautiful. A record player spun slowly in the corner, the melancholic overture of Danny Elfman’s “Jack’s Lament” curling through the room like smoke.

Outside, rain tapped at the window. Inside, creation hummed.

Jeeny sat cross-legged on the floor, charcoal smudged on her fingertips, sketching the outline of a figure — skeletal, graceful, unfinished. Across from her, Jack leaned on a paint-splattered table, tinkering with a broken lamp he’d turned into a sculpture.

Between them lay an open notebook, its top page inked with a quote — simple, raw, absolute:

“The Nightmare Before Christmas is my number one biggest influence artistically in every way.”
— Amy Lee

The words seemed to hover in the room like lyrics not yet set to melody.

Jeeny: [smiling softly] “It’s strange, isn’t it? How something so dark can make you feel so alive.”

Jack: [grinning faintly] “Yeah. Burton’s world is the only place where sadness feels like home — and joy feels earned.”

Jeeny: [nodding] “That’s why Amy Lee gets it. She doesn’t see the macabre as morbid. She sees it as beautiful.”

Jack: [quietly] “Because she understands what most people don’t — that melancholy isn’t emptiness. It’s depth.”

Host: The light from a flickering candle danced across the sketches — skeletons in tuxedos, twisted trees, eyes too large to be human but too sad to be monstrous. The entire studio breathed in grayscale and exhaled color.

Jeeny: [tilting her head, studying her drawing] “You know, people think ‘dark art’ is about fear or rebellion. But it’s not. It’s about truth — the kind that glows faintly in the dark.”

Jack: [quietly] “Exactly. The Nightmare world isn’t scary because of monsters. It’s scary because it’s honest — it admits that joy and sorrow share the same skeleton.”

Jeeny: [smiling] “And that the line between Halloween and Christmas isn’t that wide.”

Jack: [softly] “Just one song apart.”

Host: The record scratched faintly, and the song shifted — “Sally’s Song”. Amy Lee’s voice seemed to haunt the air itself, a voice born of heartbreak and starlight, the sound of someone who’d turned loneliness into architecture.

Jeeny: [whispering] “That film… it’s not just a story. It’s a language. Burton taught artists like her — like us — that imperfection could be gorgeous.”

Jack: [nodding] “Yeah. That broken things aren’t failures — they’re aesthetic.”

Jeeny: [softly] “That sadness could have texture, rhythm, even melody.”

Jack: [quietly] “And that light doesn’t always need to be white — sometimes it’s violet, or pale blue, or candle-gold against shadow.”

Jeeny: [smiling faintly] “It’s art that says: you’re allowed to ache beautifully.”

Host: The rain outside grew heavier, drumming against the glass in time with the music. It sounded like applause from ghosts — gentle, understanding, endless.

Jack: [after a pause] “You know, it’s funny how Nightmare changed everything for people like Amy Lee. Before that, ‘dark’ was taboo. You were supposed to smile your way through life.”

Jeeny: [softly] “Burton’s world gave permission to those who couldn’t.”

Jack: [nodding] “Yeah. It told them that you can love death and still love life. That skeletons dance, too.”

Jeeny: [smiling] “And that grief can be musical.”

Jack: [quietly] “That’s why her art sounds like it does — gothic, but not hopeless. It’s pain painted with empathy.”

Host: The candle burned lower, and the flame flickered through the face of Jeeny’s half-finished sketch. The figure on the page — somewhere between Jack Skellington and Amy Lee herself — seemed to glow in the dim light, like it was about to step into song.

Jeeny: [setting down her pencil] “You know what I think she saw in Nightmare? Not just the aesthetic — but the longing. The desperate need to belong in a world that doesn’t understand you.”

Jack: [softly] “Yeah. Jack Skellington isn’t trying to be scary. He’s trying to be accepted.”

Jeeny: [nodding] “Exactly. And Amy Lee’s music — all of it — is just that story retold in sound. The outsider trying to find beauty in exile.”

Jack: [smiling faintly] “And finding it in the minor chords.”

Jeeny: [quietly] “Always the minor chords.”

Host: The record reached the end, the soft crackle of the needle filling the silence like the sound of memory still breathing.

Jack: [after a pause] “You know, I think every artist needs a first heartbreak — a work that teaches them who they are.”

Jeeny: [softly] “For Amy Lee, it was Nightmare. For me, it was The Crow. For you?”

Jack: [smiling] “The first time I saw Van Gogh’s Starry Night. I realized madness could glow.”

Jeeny: [smiling faintly] “That’s what Burton does too — he paints madness with mercy.”

Jack: [nodding] “And Amy sings it with elegance.”

Jeeny: [softly] “That’s why her influence feels eternal. Because she didn’t just borrow the aesthetic — she inherited the emotion.”

Host: The storm softened, the rain turning into a whisper. The candle flickered once more, then steadied — its flame small but unwavering.

Jeeny: [quietly] “You ever think about why Nightmare still resonates after all these years? It’s because it’s honest about contradiction — light yearning for shadow, death dreaming of life.”

Jack: [softly] “Because it says we’re all unfinished creatures — stitched together by longing.”

Jeeny: [smiling faintly] “And that’s why we create. To make peace with what’s missing.”

Jack: [quietly] “Exactly. Art as resurrection.”

Jeeny: [nodding] “And resurrection as style.”

Host: The studio seemed to hum, as though the rain, the candle, the record, and their voices had merged into one living composition — something fragile but fearless.

Jack: [after a pause] “You know, Amy Lee once said that the darkness doesn’t scare her — it inspires her. Maybe that’s what real artists do: they make friends with what everyone else runs from.”

Jeeny: [softly] “Because in that darkness, they find color no one else can see.”

Jack: [smiling] “And they turn it into sound, or story, or line.”

Jeeny: [quietly] “Into beauty that doesn’t need to smile to be kind.”

Jack: [after a beat] “Into proof that monsters can be gentle.”

Host: The storm outside eased, and dawn began to ghost the horizon — faint, uncertain, the color of new beginnings.

Jeeny closed her notebook. The quote still rested on top, the ink glimmering faintly in the dim light:

“The Nightmare Before Christmas is my number one biggest influence artistically in every way.”

Host: Because the true artist doesn’t flee from the dark —
they listen to it.

They see the poetry in the bones,
the grace in the grotesque,
the melody in melancholy.

For beauty isn’t brightness alone —
it’s the way shadow teaches light to sing.

And perhaps Amy Lee understood what Tim Burton always knew —
that to create something immortal,
you must first make peace with the haunting
that lives inside you.