Why Do I Still Love Coraline (2009) This Much?

If you’ve been a regular visitor of The Geek Show for some time, you might recall that I am obsessed with the stop-motion animated movie Coraline. I reviewed it back in 2017, I listed it as Laika’s best film in 2019, and I have frequently cited it as my favourite animated film of all time.

Now that I’m a mature adult (apparently), those opinions have become significantly more nuanced. A disclaimer is necessary though – my statements about it being my favourite animated film, and one of my favourite films period, have not changed. I still love this film with all my heart and it’s one of those formative viewing experiences that got me engaged in writing and discussing film. I would not be writing on this site had I not felt this way about Coraline, simple as that.

Nevertheless, it’s safe to say that although my opinions may not have changed, my critical faculties have, and through the many rewatches I’ve done of this movie in the six years since I covered it, I’ve been aiming to sink my teeth in deeper. What are some of the core reasons why I love this film so much, beyond the surface level observations of “beautiful animation, likeable protagonist, chilling atmosphere, etc?” What keeps me coming back to this film at least once a year?

Well, I thought I’d start by briefly discussing something I shockingly left out in my first review of the film – my first memories of it.

I remember buying Coraline on Blu-Ray when I was about nine, and I watched it for the first time when I took it round my grandparents’ house. Safe to say it was a little too much for my grandparents to handle, what with its dark tone and eccentricity, but there was something I found entrancing about it. I was already somewhat aware of Laika’s existence by now – I’d seen Paranorman in cinemas and enjoyed it a lot, and it was at this time that the very underrated Boxtrolls was gearing up for release, but Coraline had a special flair that (though I love Laika to death) their other films don’t really have.

The 2000s was a decade in cinema dominated by fantasy. The Lord Of The Rings, Narnia, Pirates Of The Caribbean, Twilight and most notably, the Harry Potter films, were all massive deals during that time, and they all made fantasy accessible for a 21st century audience. For instance, the Lord Of The Rings made high lore-heavy fantasy into epic cinematic spectacle, Twilight and Harry Potter grounded the fantasy ideas in a relatable setting for younger audiences, and Pirates of the Caribbean gave cinemagoers a subversive and funny protagonist to make their franchise stand out.

They’re all fantasy, but they’re twisting and moulding fantasy into something new. However, Coraline to me is about as pure fantasy as they come. Let’s face it – it’s basically Hansel and Gretel but set in modern times. A girl enters a mysterious colourful place before discovering that the witch wants to ‘eat’ or ‘consume’ her in some way, at which point they muster up the courage to defeat this strange evil and get back to their normal lives. When you boil Coraline down to its basic elements, it’s a traditional Brothers-Grimm fairytale. One, in its feeling of wonder and escapism, and two, in its pure horror.

Once you get older, you realise that fairytales like Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, and Snow White are actually terrifying, and are far more macabre than much storytelling for children now. I think that’s why Coraline has become something of a rite of passage for people my age – you always feel like you’re getting away with something when you watch it. It’s a perfect gate-way film for getting into more creepy pulp fantasy and horror.

I also have found it interesting re-evaluating this when thinking of Henry Selick’s triumphant return to directing last year with Wendell and Wild. Coraline seems to have drained him to the point where it took him 13 years to get his creative drive back, but that film was him back with a vengeance, with easily the weirdest and most morbid bag of tricks he’s played with since The Nightmare Before Christmas. 

For as much as I enjoyed that film (check out my previous review for more details) it felt like some of that childlike whimsy was missing from it. That certain whimsical wondrous spark was lacking, because of the increasingly weird directions the film took. That’s not to say I like the film any less, but Wendell and Wild was Selick flying off the handle. Whereas Coraline is all of Selick’s best elements distilled and refined – where the balance between the whimsy and the uncanny is spot on. 

Selick’s projects have always been at the mercy of someone else, so to speak – The Nightmare Before Christmas was heavily presided over by Burton, Selick had nothing to do with the scripts for James and the Giant Peach and Monkeybone, and obviously Wendell And Wild was a collaboration between himself and Jordan Peele. Coraline marks the only film where he has sole writing credit over the screenplay, and as such he is able to hone his craft down without compromise. Yes, the film is based on Neil Gaiman’s brilliant short story, but it was entirely Selick who brought Gaiman’s life to work – no one else had their hands on it.

With every other Selick film, you feel like an outsider looking in. You’re merely an observer watching Jack Skellington obsess over Christmas, or seeing how all of the separate strands in Wendell and Wild come together, while Coraline is the perfect audience avatar. You are seeing literally everything through her eyes, since the film’s attention never goes away from her, and I think that acts as a reprieve amidst all the horror – children want someone to root for, and I don’t think Selick’s other works offer them that. 

The pace of the film is perfect. I’ve never admired how much of a slow-burn it is, as it’s really only halfway through that the Other World begins to unravel, but that just shows how much Selick is treating this mostly child-based audience with respect. Most fairytales start off as somewhat plain and calm before everything goes to hell, but Selick knows how to make the calm before the storm enchanting as possible, and the storm unbelievably eerie.

Ultimately though, I think the main thing that has made me love this film even more, is watching and discussing the film with other people. My first experience of watching it with my peers was during primary school, but as you can imagine we didn’t take films as seriously as we do now. My main incentive for doing this redux review was re-watching the film in the film society I’m part of at university, and seeing an audience of some people who, like me, knew the film line-by-line, but also others who had never seen the film and were experiencing it for the first time in their late-teens, yet were falling in love with it just as much as I did as a kid.

That to me proves the ultimate power of Coraline, as it seemingly has cross-generational appeal in a way that few animated films can replicate. I’ve spent evenings on the Coraline Reddit with complete strangers theorising on all details in the movie, and although none of them may be true (but let’s face it, Coraline’s still trapped) the fact that an animated film can offer us that much to discuss feels really thrilling as someone who loves getting more out of this film medium. I love Pixar and Disney as much as the next guy, and I love what Sony is doing with the Spiderverse films and this new style of computer animation, but because of the craftsmanship and the conviction on display in Coraline, I will always favour stop-motion. 

Selick seems to be undergoing some sort of creative renaissance, what with the various projects he’s involved in and the murmurings that he may return to Laika and oversee an adaptation of another Neil Gaiman work, The Ocean at The End Of The Lane. Whether any of these projects have as much staying power on Coraline remains to be seen, but so long as Selick is around making cult movies like Coraline, things can’t be all bad. Long live Laika, long live Henry Selick, and long live Coraline.

Alex’s Archive – Coraline