Sixteen More Screams For Halloween: Day 11 (Coraline)

Well, this was something. I'm really not sure how I am going to describe it, but I'm going to take a shot at it for an amount of time. I'm no real stranger to Neil Gaiman, of course. I really liked Sandman and for many years I considered The Doctor's Wife to be the best episode of Doctor Who ever made. (These days it's top 5 material, though lord help me if you asked me what the other four were.) Pair Gaiman's storytelling with the fabulous stop-motion visuals of Henry Selick, and you get Coraline, a film which is a generation removed from me but I'm sure is a foundational text for those Gen Z kids who laid eyes on it a decade and change ago. Many a wise scholar has said that the best media for kids sticks in your mind with a handful of unsettling moments and visuals, and if that's the case then Coraline must be a fucking masterpiece.

My pal Joe, who I simulwatched the film with today, called it Miyazaki meets Nightmare Before Christmas, and I really like that comparison. I have a more shorthand and alliterative one: gothic Ghibli. Even the portions of Coraline's ordinary life we see bristle with inventive imagery and larger-than-life characters in her new home, and that's before she stumbles down a rabbit hole into a mirrored dream world. The sense of whimsy and wonder increases during these nighttime excursions, and the visuals are absolutely stunning and surreal in their uniqueness and beauty. It's quite unlike reality, and a fun and welcoming escape from the doldrums of busy parents who don't seem to give a shit about Coraline... but there is a dark side. Like the button eyes, or the dark implications of this perfect world reacting to Coraline thinking her friend is a loudmouth by preventing him from talking. Reality and dream are blending... but so are dream and nightmare. 

Two sides of the same coin, two mirrored dichotomies which flip the script and reveal that this is all a lure by an evil creature who collects children's eyes and leaves their button-eyed souls behind a mirror world to languish away for eternity, all before moving on to lure the next one in with promises of sweet dreams and everything they could ever want. With her needle hands working on her button-doll to lure Coraline in the opening, the vibe I get is from the opening of the first Nightmare On Elm Street, with Freddy crafting his own glove. Now there's another movie about the power of dream and nightmare, and Coraline is her own dream warrior as she plunges in to the dream world once more to save her family, taking on a quest and playing a game for her very soul with this creature. It's here that the beautiful dreams melt away into the cruel horrific facade they were and give some really striking and horrific visuals, but throughout it all Coraline stays brave and true and fights this needle spider demon thing to a conclusion.

I mean, I liked the movie. The stop-motion is really impressive, especially the way it works light and shadow and fog into its puppetry. This is a master craft of a film, a real labor of love, and it shows. Were I about 12 years younger, I could see this movie messing me the fuck up had I ever encountered it. I have my own brushes with media that left those spooky imprints on me, and this film is that for the generation after mine. I hope you kids grew up well and you enjoyed your well-made stop-motion movie about dreams and nightmares. I thought it was pretty neat, and vibed with it. A bit lacking on the analysis, maybe, but that's that and it's on to some more adult fare.