Coraline: Silicone, Wire and Terror. A Review

Image - Selick, 2009

Release date: 08 May 2009

Director: Henry Selick

Henry Selick. Need I say more?

We all enjoy being scared. It's just human nature. A scare here and there, we all love it.

However, hearing rumours of adults leaving Caroline screenings distraught over the terror they have just witnessed helps to calm the nerves, barely. Because they are right. I was petrified. This is a terrifying film. 

Coraline and the word curious go hand in hand. This is a true horror film that is also a warm and brightly coloured children’s fairy tale about the weird that lies beneath our everyday bleak and miserable lives. It's as strange as it is beautiful, as creepy as it is charming; this film had me almost traumatised as a child. Coraline is not a film to be missed. 

As Selick once said, ‘‘Kids love to be scared - there’s ways to do it right, and ways to do it wrong’. He seems to be right. Children adore this film. The film smashed the box office, making it the third most successful animated film just behind Chicken Run and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

Dakota Fanning plays our heroine. As whiny and annoying as courageous, Fanning really captures the fear and emotion through just her voice. Deterring away from female animated stereotypes, Coraline is strong and independent.

The ‘Pink Palace’ - the house where everything occurs, is home to Coraline’s eccentric neighbours. Mr Bobinsky (Ian McShane), the ‘amazing’ Russian upstairs and Misses Spink and Forcible (Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French, respectively) downstairs, housing their performing pasts. The bizarre neighbours add a unique layer to the story, despite them constantly getting Coraline’s name wrong - apologies, Coraline.

Her parents, voiced by Teri Hatcher and John Hodgman, leave her constantly alone as they attempt to reestablish their business in their new town. Can we even blame her for following the mice through the hole in their wall? After all, she craves adventure.

She falls into a surreal universe. While everything is different, it is the same. She is welcomed by her "Other Parents," whose sole purpose is to please Coraline and ease her woes from her ‘real mom and dad’, who persistently fail to notice Coraline's adventurous nature. 

Despite this idyllic world, there’s one slight downfall. They want to steal her eyes and sew buttons in their place. As Coraline declines their offer, the ‘Other Mother’ grows and grows and grows. The real terror begins. This other world, a stark contrast to the real world, which once bore a bright and vivid colour palette, is now stained grey. 

As the film draws to a close, the final fight begins. Coraline’s adventurous ways come out to play as she fights for her chance of survival. This dark twist to a kids' film leaves its audience’s jaws on the floor. 

Chase scenes, hiding scenes, and puzzles (almost as eccentric as her neighbours) to be solved. You’d be a fool to doubt this blue-haired teen. The stop-motion teen goes headfirst into danger. Leaving this film, arguably, one of the scariest children's films in existence.