"...it's yum-yum-yummy, in your tum-tum-tummy." A horror movie for kids. Sounds like a crazy idea, doesn’t it? Apparently it’s not too crazy for writer and director Henry Selick and graphic novelist Neil Gaiman. It’s a good thing they went through with it, too, because what resulted from the undertaking was a very visually impressive, creepy and awesome stop motion treat.
The story concerns a spunky, needy little tween named Coraline Jones (Dakota Fanning). She moves to a large old house in Oregon from Michigan, with her father (John Hodgman) and her mother (Teri Hatcher). Her new home is fairly dull, there isn’t a whole lot to do around there except hang out with a pair of aging showgirls (Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French) and a beet loving Russian mouse circus ringleader named The Great Bobinsky (Ian McShane). She feels neglected, since her father and mother are both journalists for a gardening magazine and are in a hurry to meet their deadlines. Also, unlike her old hometown, she doesn’t really make many friends in the area except for a strange, science obsessed boy named Wybie (Robert Bailey Jr.). While exploring around the big old house, she finds a small door, concealed behind some wallpaper. She goes through it, and walks into an eccentric new world, with a more attentive Other Mother, an Other Father, and a whole lot of fun and good times to be had. All she has to do to make the good times last forever is sew buttons…on her eyes. Things start to get a lot less comfortable from there, and when the Other Mother and Father kidnap her real parents, it’s up to her and Wybie’s mysterious talking cat (Keith David) to set things straight.
Some would argue that stop motion animation is a dying art form in the wake of CGI, but this movie definitely argues against that idea. Selick, of course, is a master of stop motion, having helmed The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach, and Monkeybone, so it’s safe to say that he knew what he was doing with the direction here, and it shows. The facial expressions, blinking eyes and limbs all move fluidly, and although some frames do get choppy in some scenes, it doesn’t impede the quality of the movie at all. As for seeing it in RealD 3-D, while some would say that it’s unnecessary, I definitely think it enhances the experience quite a bit. In the theater, at the beginning when the sewing needle is in the middle of the screen, I couldn’t help but notice some viewers actually moving their heads back a little, myself included.
This adaptation of Gaiman’s story is a delight, actually improving on it a little. The addition of Wybie and the cat, which may seem superficial to some, was a creative way to deal with all the internal monologuing in the original story, and the way they handled the ghost children helped to soften some of the additional creepiness that probably would have made it off-putting. Coraline isn’t a perfect protagonist, but I think that near the end of the story she starts to get over her neediness and “me first” mentality, and starts to look at things from other people’s perspective a little more. The other characters living in the house were also hilarious, and the villainous Other Mother was appropriately creepy.
Lastly, there’s the music. Unfortunately, They Might Be Giants only get one song in this movie, but it was fantastic.
This song is definitely a lot creepier than it sounds. "Our eyes will be on Coraline..."
The rest of the score had a theme of eerie faux-innocence that was so appropriate considering the story and plot of the movie.
While this movie might be a little too intense for younger children, the older tweens and, hey, even the adults will definitely get a kick out of this seriously spooky spectacle.
Oh, yeah, i should mention that this is only one of what will be potentially more movie reviews being posted here. You can also read them in the UMass Lowell Connector.
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