Coraline is a stop-animation film based on Neil Gaiman’s successful children’s novella of the same name.

The plot revolves around the young Coraline (voiced by Dakota Fanning) who has recently moved into the Pink Palace Apartments, a run-down house in the middle of nowhere, where her work-obsessed and writerly parents are recovering from her mother’s accident. Coraline is soon bored and sets to exploring the old rickety house, where she encounters some rather bizarre neighbours, Wyborne "Wybie" Lovat, the grandson of Coraline's landlady (voiced by Robert Bailey Jr.), the acrobatic Mr. Bobinsky (Ian McShane) and the elderly drama queens Miss Spink and Miss Forcible (Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French respectively) a strange cat and several Scottish Terriers.

When Coraline strays across a small wooden door hidden in the house, she soon unlocks it and finds herself privy to a parallel world, where her parents and neighbours are reflected in a much more positive light. Despite the fact that these ‘doppelgangers’ all have buttons for eyes, Coraline is drawn into a happier, more magical version of her own dreary life, meeting her ‘Other Mother’, enjoying delicious meals, an enchanted garden and the attention she dearly craves from her real-life parents.

All, however, is not as it seems, and as the film progresses, events soon take a sinister turn…

Coraline the movie captures the creepiness of the book admirably, while turning its dreary atmosphere up to ten in the colour and visual stakes. The animation is beautiful, with some truly wonderful sights to absorb, from the Jumping Mouse Circus to the aforementioned enchanted garden (one of the many highlights of the film).

Make no mistake, this is Horror for kids. By the finale, things have turned rather dark indeed, and one wonders how some kids might react to the all-pervading spookiness and the rising tension. The eight year old we watched it with was scared out of his wits by the closing scenes and we had to do a fair bit of reassuring afterwards!

Coraline heralds from the same production team behind The Nightmare Before Christmas, and while directed by Henry Selick, it bears all the familiar hallmarks of a Tim Burton film. The story by Neil Gaiman is as original as ever and the combination of these two elements work wonderfully, presenting a fresh, haunting, exciting tale with a candy-striped and ominous edge. There is not quite as much humour as one might expect, but all the same, Coraline the movie lives up to the hype and is well worth a look for adults and children alike.

JB

Saw this a few days ago with my ten and six year old boys and we all loved it. I thought it was very creepy and so did the older child, who is a very imaginative sort (like his mother, poor kid ) but the younger one pronounced it 'not scary at all.'
We saw the 3D version and it really was excellent.