Skonflix Overview & Editorial Review
While exploring her dreary new home at the Pink Palace Apartments, an adventurous eleven year old girl named Coraline Jones discovers a secret hidden door behind the wallpaper that opens into a mysterious, colorful parallel dimension. In this seemingly magical realm, she meets her Other Mother and Other Father—attentive, creepy button eyed doppelgängers who fulfill her every wish with delicious meals, glowing gardens, and playful neighbors. However, Coraline's initial delight quickly turns to horror when the sinister Other Mother reveals her true intent: to sew black buttons into Coraline's eyes and steal her soul permanently, just as she has done to countless ghost children over the centuries. Aided by a witty, sarcastic black cat who can freely travel between both realms and a quirky local boy named Wybie, Coraline must gather all her courage, wits, and resourcefulness to challenge the terrifying Beldam to a high stakes game of hide and seek, hunting down the hidden souls of the lost children and rescuing her real parents before the sinister spider like creature traps her in the nightmare world forever.
Written and directed by stop motion visionary Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach), Coraline (2009) is a groundbreaking dark fantasy animated feature produced by Laika and Focus Features, adapted from Neil Gaiman's acclaimed 2002 novella. Celebrated as the first stop motion animated film shot entirely in stereoscopic three dimensional format, the ambitious production involved hundreds of handcrafted puppets, thousands of tiny custom props, and painstakingly detailed miniature sets that took years to construct and animate frame by frame. The creative team relied on innovative rapid prototyping technology to 3D print dynamic facial expressions for the puppets, seamlessly blending traditional stop motion artistry with atmospheric lighting, eerie mechanical puppets, and a haunting orchestral score composed by Bruno Coulais featuring otherworldly vocal performances.
Releasing in movie theaters before launching across digital video on demand services like Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, and Google TV, as well as streaming platforms such as Max and Roku, the dark animated classic stars Dakota Fanning as Coraline Jones, Teri Hatcher as Mel Jones and the Other Mother, Keith David as the Cat, Robert Bailey Jr. as Wybie, and Ian McShane as Mr. Bobinsky. Earning over one hundred eighty million dollars worldwide along with nominations for the Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature, the masterpiece continues to receive universal acclaim from animation critics, horror enthusiasts, and audiences of all ages for its timeless Gothic aesthetic, unforgettable character designs, and thrilling story of childhood bravery.