This Is Halloween

"This Is Halloween" is a song from the 1993 film The Nightmare Before Christmas composed and written by Danny Elfman. In the film it is performed by the residents of the fictional "Halloween Town", which is the film's main setting, and introduces the town's Halloween centered lifestyle.

"This Is Halloween" was created by Danny Elfman, the main composer for The Nightmare Before Christmas. On the 2011 album V Rock Disney, which features visual kei artists covering Disney songs, Sadie covered this song. The Swiss/German symphonic metal band Ad Infinitum did a cover in 2020. The song was performed as part of a virtual Broadway benefit concert hosted by the Disney Music Group on Halloween 2020. Money from the concert was donated to the Lymphoma Research Foundation and the Actors Fund. In October 2023, the song was added to the soundtrack of the video game Rocket League as part of a Halloween event.

"This Is Halloween" is performed by an orchestra, consisting of a piano, a string section, woodwind and brass instruments, cowbells, tambourines, a xylophone, and a banjo. The residents of the film's fictional Halloween Town sing the vocal parts. Writer David Ventura highlighted the fact that despite multiple artists often singing simultaneously, their voice lines don't overlap, as they're always at least two octaves apart. Rob LeDonne of Billboard magazine described the song as "anthemic". The song's intro, performed by a string orchestra, is built upon the use of staccato eighth and sixteenth notes. According to Asprou, the short, separated notes played in quick succession help establish an eerie atmosphere that persists throughout the composition. The chorus is performed in the key of G minor, ending in A flat minor. Asprou described this ascending chord progression as "the critters [preparing] to scare". At the end of the chorus the song temporarily switches to time signature, further emphasizing a sense of uneasiness. while Darren Franich from the same website described it as a "rousing hymn" and "the October anthem". Elfman later expressed happiness with the song's longevity, commenting in 2021, "When [Nightmare] came out, I did a two day press junket and virtually every interview started with: 'Too scary for kids, right?' So to come back years later and to see families out there, and to be getting recordings of people's kids who are 4 years old singing 'What's This' or 'This is Halloween,' makes me really feel blessed. It's like a second life and proving them wrong."