Coraline!

 

 

 

From the director of Nightmare Before Christmas, Henry Selick brings to us yet another fantasy/horror movie, Coraline, which is based on the children's book written by Neil Gaman. In the movie, Coraline Jones, played by Dakota Fanning, and Coraline's parents, played by Teri Hatcher and John Hodgman, move to a new apartment building called The Pink Palace where Coraline has no friends and is surrounded by strange neighbors. Little did Coraline know her dull reality was about to turn into a crazy fantasy when she enters a parallel universe.

The film begins with Coraline and her parents moving into a very old apartment called The Pink Place located in Oregon. Once they get settled into their new home you learn that Coraline's parents don't really show her much love or attention. Since Coraline is neglected by her parents she tries to find people to talk to and keep her company but her neighbors are all strange and the only kid her age is Whimmey, a boy she doesn't really like. In the middle of the night Coraline wonders the house coming across a little door that will take her to a parallel universe. This other universe is strangely similar to her own but people have buttons for eyes and completely opposite personality's. Entering this place makes all of Coralines dreams come true until her "other mother" tries to trick her into staying forever.

 

To film this movie Henry Selick uses Stop Motion Animation which is a technique used to make an object look like it is moving on its own. Each puppet is moved in small increments before capturing a photo. Each second of the film takes about 24 photos to make the scenes look as realistic as possible. Each charater is made out of clay with moveable joints making it eaiser to capture the stop motion technique Selick wanted for this movie. Althogh puppets were used in the filliming of this stop motion animation production not all filmers will use puppets, offten real people will be used. 

Another major part of this movie was the costume making. All the outfits the puppets wear throughout this movie were acctually hand sewn to fit the puppets perfectly and look real. For each scene though one of the puppets may have mulitples of their outfits so it will look perefect in every picture taken.


The movie Coraline was very thrilling keeping me on the edge of my seat. Its a perfect movie with lots of suspens thats always keeping wondering whats going to happen in the next scene. Although I really enjoyed this film, its definetly not one I think should be rated PG, from the horror to the apperence of some of the characters this movie is a bit to mature for someone under the age of 13.