I would assume it's some classical origin but where does the feel of music like the nightmare before christmas and gothic styles like using certain altered chords to sound like horror or halloween come from?
I'm not referring to atonal horror music, I mean like spooky childrens music or something of that nature. Like using alot of the harmonic minor scale chords. Any composers that started using stuff like that? I know evanescence uses a ton of that kind of gothic influence in their music.
I've been real curious as I couldn't find anything online. Also what is it called?

The classic example is Camille Saint-Saëns' Danse Macabre:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LupmmElMoI