Coraline is a hair raising thriller for all age groups

Reality and the fantastical merge for this film adaptation

SPOILERS AHEAD

The film “Coraline” (2009) was directed and written by Henry Selick. Coraline did have a book and was written by Neil Gaiman. Imdb’s Metascore for Coraline is 80 while Rotten Tomatoes is 90 percent.

The genre of this film is animation, family, and fantasy. I would also include scary since the film has some dark and twisted scenes. Coraline is rated PG by Motion Picture Rating for thematic elements, scary images, strong language and suggestive humor.

My goodness, I wished I could rate the film 10 out 10. It does an excellent job of setting up the mood, introducing the characters and slowly showing foreshadowing throughout the film.

Anyone who was raised by neglectful parents can relate to Coraline, except we don’t get to go to a fantasy reality of button eye parents. “Coraline” is a film based on a young girl who moves to an old house with boring and neglectful parents.

Throughout the film, we are introduced to the parents and how they behave with their daughter Coraline. Coraline’s father does his best to interact with his daughter but ends up being a workaholic.

While Coraline’s mother is stubborn and always angry with both Coraline and her husband.

What “Coraline” does best is setting up the mood by introducing the characters’ personalities.

Not many films do this since they think it’s waste of time and money. But, in this film, it does it in a quick and fun manner. For example, Wyborne aka ‘Wybie’ is a character who is shy, quite annoying and funny. He is an important character throughout the film and a character who kind of backlashes Coraline with a doll who almost looks like her.

Another character is a black stray cat who can talk about a different reality. He also plays a key role in guiding and warning Coraline on why her button eye parents are darkly twisted parents. The reason why I brought up these two characters because at the end of the film they all become strong friends.

Another interesting aspect is the way the author introduces the characters.

When I first saw Wyborne aka ‘Wybie’ I thought he would ask lots of questions throughout the film. Nope, I was wrong. He is a character that holds lots of secrets and is shy, but a funny character to know.

When we first meet him, his body is resembled by an introvert person, which perfectly matches his character description. There are other characters who behave like this, such as Coraline’s parents and kind of the black cat.

A character in the film who is by far the weirdest character and yet energetic would be Sergei Alexander Bobinsky also known as both Mr. B or Mr. Bobinsky.

By far, this is the second character who kind of scared me in the film. His appearance is a Russian guy with blue skin, inconsistent body shape, constantly performing acrobatics and extremely tall. His personality is bold and truthful with his words, but I wasn’t sure on what was the purpose of making this Russian guy have an inconsistent body shape.

Now, if you’ve watched this movie before you know that there is so much foreshadowing throughout the film. An example would be the well at the beginning of the film. When Coraline was outside playing with a stick she heard a rock fall from a hill. When she picked up the rock she threw it back to the hill and heard a loud cat screaming in pain.

As she heard the cat’s scream, she began to run as quickly as she can. Until she reached a point where she was standing in a circle of mushrooms resembling a circle. That is when Wyborne came in with a painted skull mask with a LED light that allows him to zoom in into the ground with his motorcycle.

The well and Wyborne skull mask were used to prevent the button eye mother of Coraline from escaping the fantasy dark reality.

Another thing I’d point out early was the scary, dark tone in the film. If any children under the age of 13 watched this movie alone, they can possibly get nightmares from Coraline’s other mother, Bedlam. To describe Beldam, she is a character who almost resembles Coraline mother. Beldam has button eyes as sockets, her skin is white as paper, however when Coraline makes her mad. She becomes taller, thinner and quite sinister for a PG-rated film.

My favorite scary part in the film is when Coraline had to challenge her Beldam to getting her parents back in her reality. After Coraline collected the three ghost children she faces Beldam in her dark and scary room. The ghost children warned her that even if she wins her challenges she wouldn’t let her escape the room.

Both Coraline and the black stray cat had to think of something fast before the whole dimension fell apart. Coraline pointed back to the door where she came in the first place.

When she did Beldam was over there unlocking the door, and stating that her parents were not in there. All of a sudden Coraline shouted she won’t stay here and threw the stray cat at Bedlam’s face.

Once the cat landed on her face the cat scratched the Bedlam’s eyes and the whole dimension started to fall apart.

Coraline and the ghost children help her seal the door preventing her from entering Coraline’s world.

As Coraline was escaping, Beldam began to scream and shout at Coraline saying, “Don’t leave me! Don’t leave me! I will die without you.”

When I heard that part the music started growing intensely and my arms began to get some goosebumps on my skin. Coraline did make it out alive and that scene right there would make any child be afraid of Bedlam.

In the end, Coraline saved her parents and everybody began connecting with each other. Especially Coraline’s parents, they began to grow flowers outside of their home with their neighbors. I would seriously and highly recommend this movie to anyone.