Christmas season is here, and that makes it the perfect time to revisit the Disney holiday classic “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” It’s the touching story of a time when the citizens of Halloween Town decided to try their hand at Christmas. It goes haywire of course, but Santa saves the day, everyone learns a valuable lesson, and the residents of Halloweentown presumably resume their evil, murderous activities.
We’re tired of these monsters getting a pass just because they’re into singing and pageantry. Halloween Town is populated exclusively by unholy creatures who cause death and carnage wherever they go. We’ve decided it’s time to set the record straight. Here’s every character from the “children’s movie” “The Nightmare Before Christmas” ranked by kill count.
31. Santa Claus
No, Santa isn’t secretly a monster, relax. He’s a jolly old magical man who delivers presents to children all over the world just like everyone thinks he is. We include him only because he is a major character, but at best, Santa has only murdered about a dozen people in the name of delivering gifts.
30. Black cat
The cat is pretty much just a cat and has killed no more people than any other black cat in the world, which is to say somewhere between 10 and 20 babies by stealing their breath in the middle of the night.
29. Melting Man
Believe it or not, he’s just a regular guy who happens to be melting. Unfortunately, due to his hideous appearance, Halloween Town is the only place that will have him. He’s killed 11 people, but they were all in self-defense against the various lynch mobs that descended on him whenever he tried to settle down in a normal place.
28. Mr. Hyde
Despite his infamous namesake, Hyde has only killed about a baker’s dozen people, and almost all of them weren’t children. That’s practically being a saint in Halloween Town, a den of horrors. The same can’t be said for the little guy hiding under the hat of the little guy hiding under Hydes’ hat though. That little dude will murder your whole family for fun.
27. Frankenstein
Frankenstein has murdered 18 people in cold blood, not a high body count by Halloween Town standards, but the way he savors and revells in each kill is truly sickening. Just further proof that while the cold hand of science can technically produce life, only the divine spark of our Father on high can imbue a living creature with a soul.
26. Creature Under the Stairs
He’s actually super nice, and he only snatches the occasional child when his natural food supply of bugs runs scarce in the winter.
25. Corpse Family
For a while, they tried doing that “Twilight” thing where they moved from town to town going to High School forever, but people caught on that they were monsters real fast. Probably because of all the rotting and smelling. After killing 26 people who had the misfortune of “discovering” their terrible secret, they accepted that their plan just wasn’t sustainable and moved to Halloween Town.
24. Clown with the Tear-Away Face
He’s pretty redundant honestly. Tearing away a creepy ass clown face to reveal a creepy monster face is like taking off your Jason mask to reveal a Michael Myers mask. It doesn’t escalate anything, it’s just confusing. Maybe it’s the frustration he feels over his failed branding that has motivated him to kill and eat dozens of children.
23. Cyclops
Legends of the Cyclops’s cruel brutality go back to the epics of Homer, and Halloween Town’s resident one-eye is no exception. Keep your sheep, wine, and man flesh away from this monster.
22. Grim Reaper
That’s right, death itself hangs its hat and scythe in Halloween Town. Still think this is a movie the whole family can enjoy? Technically the Grim Reaper’s body count is, you know, all of them, but aside from being the avatar of fate the Grim Reaper goes out of his way to light homeless people on fire for a sense of control—43 and counting—and the police aren’t even trying to catch him.
21. Zombie Band
They’ve got a Danny Ellfman-like sound aesthetic and an insatiable appetite for human flesh. They really know how to give eating your brain while you’re still alive a sweeping cinematic flair.
20. Harlequin Demon
Part old-world clown, part demon, it doesn’t get any more evil than that, He turns dead animal carcasses into hats, does that sound nice? Is that something a nice person would do? Is this someone you really want your children looking up to? On top of having a Leatherface-like fashion sense, this guy is dumb. You didn’t see it in the movie, but he killed 56 people before realizing a human skull was too small to fit over a human head.
19. Witches
I mean, witches! Come on! Did we all just up and forget witches are evil? I know the term has been muddled a bit what with Harry Potter and spooky ladies who sell scented candles on Etsy, but these are clearly old-school child-eating witches, and everyone is just fine with this? Hope your family enjoys all that popcorn and soda pop while you casually watch them boil a child alive in the movie’s opening song!
18. Creature Under the Bed
The creature under the bed is a coward. Why do you think he hides under there? He’s more afraid of you than you are of him. Still, fear makes a creature dangerous. If he’s cowering under your mattress and you get up unexpectedly in the middle of the night he might just panic and pull you under. He’s done it at least 70 times.
17. Igor
He’s the assistant to Dr. Finklestein, one of history’s greatest and most depraved butchers. You could argue that some of that blood is on Igor’s hands as well, and we won’t weigh in, that’s for history to decide. If we’re just talking people Igor has killed personally, 86 sex workers.
16. Jewel Finklestein
She was made with a portion of Dr. Finklestein’s brain and thus inherited a percentage of his muder-in-the-name-of-science impulses. She only has a small part of his brain though, so the science part is kind of lacking. She once killed 11 people to build a potato clock, which is generally speaking way more people than you need to kill to build a potato clock, like 11 more.

You have to start somewhere, and the Rx Bandits literally did such at the bottom with the creatively named “Demo(nstration),” which was released during ska’s peak, and that certainly benefited all involved. However, as professional haters that have more qualifications than you miscreants spouting hot garbage, we can’t justify this one being ranked higher than the dreaded last spot, and we know that the band will certainly agree with our not-so-hot take, but like we alluded to earlier, you sure won’t. These recordings may be youthful and endearing, but they are so low quality that maybe the release shouldn’t have been made public. Band-aids may be for THE soul, but duct tape is better, and RXB managed to prove that they could (wait for it, wait for it) cover up their past with seven, yes seven, more LPs, all of which are superior to this effort.
Those damn (Pharmaceutical) bandits definitely grew a bunch on their sophomore LP “Those Damn Bandits,” but in what sounds like an insulting jab is actually a sincere compliment because they got even better and better afterwards! “Those Damn Bandits” is likely what brought you, dear reader, here unless it didn’t, as it was originally released via Antedote Records, and re-released on Drive-Thru Records, also eventual home to (A) New Found Glory, Midtown, Finch, and Sheryl Crow, just one year later as their first of four RXB LPs for the glorious tastemaker label. Fun fact: Members of the superhero act known as The Aquabats and underrated ska-punk superstars Jeffries Fan Club guest on “Those Damn Bandits.”
“Gemini, Her Majesty” is better than the first two entries here combined X G2G, but it is our least favorite one from this century. Cheer up, Stargazers, we still love it because ANY Rx Bandits music is GOOD music, with the exception of youthfully ignorant pejorative and inflammatory termed songs. Released on RXB frontman, Dispatch touring member, The (enigmatic) Sound of Animals Fighting’s (The) Walrus, and seemingly genuine affable guy, Matt Embree’s MDB Records, which stands for Mash Down Babylon Records, likely named such because of the song by Chosen Brother and Rhythm of Sound, RXB took the power back and showcased such! Please release more music, gents!
“Halfway Between Here and There” is, without question, hesitation, second thought, or filter, the band’s best album from the 20th Century, and this time we mean it now or never! This album is rad as Bad Company for the most part, not just because of its high-quality songs, but the fact that it took the multi-piece band outside of their comfort zones and literally the cigarette butt and feces-covered Orange County. Proof? Ok. We’re gonna corner you with some tourmates from this album’s cycle: The Bloodhound Gang, Goldfinger, Reel Big Fish, and Allen Ginsberg’s spirit who helped co-write (the) Beat Generation’s classic manifesto poem “Howl,” also known as “Howl for Carl Solomon (Schechter)”.
Rx Bandits’ seventh and lucky full-length studio album, has insanely epic album cover art by Sonny Kay, who also designed unbelievable album covers for The Mars Volta, The Locust, 311, yes, 311, and Sergei “Two-Tone Ska King” Rachmaninoff, and a freeform yet huge sound that most four-pieces could never replicate if they tried. Since we sang Matt Embree’s name to the heavens in an earlier section of this album ranking piece, we need to give more sweaty hugs to guitarist/keyboardist Steve “The Fall Of” Choi, Joseph Troy “Which Rhymes With Choi,” Chris “Try To Pronounce My Last Name” Tsagakis, and their Cousin Oliver for absolutely shredding in a non-destructive way on “Mandala,” your high school jazz band teacher’s second favorite LP, of which Medeski Martin & Wood’s avant-groove “Shack-man,” and not WCW’s Shockmaster, will reign supreme.
Rx Bandits’ first and only effort to start with an ellipses, and also first non-Drive-Thru Records release that wasn’t their ok, on the cusp of good, but certainly far from superb debut record. This was where the band entered the Hipster Training Academy School To School Plebs, and they freaking graduated with honors, recorded this boundary-pushing, original in the best way, chaotic, and pretty like a pretty picture that is pretty LP in 2005 and 2006, and released “…And the Battle Begun” in the fall of 2006. In closing, Bruce Lee, Nacho Libre, the inventor of Pogs, and your stoner uncle all love this album!
“The Resignation,” Rx Bandits’ fifth full-length studio album and last for the aforementioned Drive-Thru Records is ranked in the golden spot approximately ⅓ of the year, but it’s not that time of month for the band, so it’s sitting prettily and/or angrily in the silver slot. Because of such, it is the first of two LPs to, uh, skip a “skip it” section in this piece, and we can sleep soundly knowing that we documented such for y’all. Also, a little birdie told us that “The Resignation” was recorded live at North Hollywood’s now-closed Wishbone Studios, owned by members of Blind Melon, completely live, with various overdubs and other musical intricacies to eventually follow. Not too many bands could effectively do this well, or at all, but there is only one Rx Bandits, and even Big Pharma proudly backs ‘em! Prophetic.
Like we said in the last section of this piece, this one is a “no skip” LP. Progress? Yes, quite literally. In our hottest take here, we need to say on paper that “Progress” is easily the best ska or ska-adjacent full-length studio album to be released this century, and it deserves far more praise than it received then and gets to this day. We mentioned other RXB band members earlier, but also want to shout out former multi instrumentalist, author, teacher, and TSOAF patriarch Rich “ard” Balling, and bassist James “Blunt” Salomone for their hard work and progressive performances on “Progress.” Rumor has it that this LP was originally called “Artificial Intelligence and the Fall of Technology,” which not only sounds like a Fall Out Boy song, but is a weak album title. Still, what we say to you goes in one ear and out the other.