Halloween is for the kids. At least, that has been the case for the last hundred years or so, which is around the time that “trick or treating” started to become more of a yearly tradition. Granted, there has been a boom in the last few decades of marketing the holiday towards adults, but as candy sales continue to verify year after year, the kids are the real focus. 

Our next Halloween Horrors entry takes a look at a film that, much like Halloween, is very much for the kids, but can easily be appreciated and enjoyed by grown-ups as well. It tells a creepy tale, which is a must for any proper Halloween. Again, much like Halloween, you’re never too old for a scary story.

Danielle Zepeda returns to the Halloween Horrors series to share today’s tale with us. This will be Danielle’s fourth year as a part of our series, first joining us back in 2018 with a look at the 1999 film Idle Hands. We’ve been honored to have her join us every year since. For this year’s entry, Danielle will be joining us for a few thoughts on….

 

Coraline

By: Danielle Zepeda

If you’ve ever seen Henry Selick’s hauntingly beautiful Coraline, it likely left its mark. Whether it was the eerie button eyes or the spider-like “Other Mother”, Coraline is the kind of scary movie that can take up space in your nightmares.

Coraline Jones has just moved to a new home in a new state and is not exactly thrilled about it. Her parents are always busy working. So, they’re not interested in feeding her active imagination, and she’s resigned to ready-to-eat meals and lots of alone time. On top of that, her neighbors at the Pink Palace Apartments are quite strange, and she’s bored with just about everyone and everything.

To avoid unpacking, she begins to explore her new home and discovers a secret door in the wall of the living room and begs her Mom to let her open it. She agrees as long as Coraline promises to stay quiet and out of her way for the rest of the day. At first, the door is a disappointment, but at night she learns that it leads to a “portal” to a parallel universe, one that mirrors her real world nearly perfectly. Except in this world, there’s good food, attentive parents and eccentric neighbors to entertain her. Coraline encounters her “Other Mother” and “Other Father” very shortly after arriving at this version of the Pink Palace. Despite their bizarre button eyed appearance, they compensate for everything she doesn’t seem to have. Through delicious meals, lively games, a beautiful garden, and most importantly, attention, Coraline is quickly enamored. However, as with all good things, something treacherous lurks around a perfectly manicured corner.

As her journey progresses, she grows a bit skeptical of the perfect world beyond the wall, but that doesn’t stop her from rubbing in how wonderful life is there to her Mom and Dad. As usual, her Mom just assumes she is having vivid dreams and brushes her off, even suggesting she stay in her dreams if life there is so much better. Coraline takes her Mom’s advice and continues to visit her “other” parents. On one such trip, she is presented with her own pair of shiny black button eyes. In order to stay here forever, all she has to do is sew the buttons over her own! They promise it won’t hurt at all! Coraline is absolutely horrified and balks at the idea and vows to never return to this place once she wakes up. Once Coraline won’t give her “Other Mother” what she wants, her true “self”, known as “the Beldam” is revealed; changing from a sweet, perfect mother figure to something arachnid-like and skeletal, with long bony fingers, a slightly arched back, and a sinister smile. As she is revealed, so is the truth of the other world. The beautiful garden disappears, and she attacks Coraline. The once colorful and welcoming apartment is now dark and dingy. She now has to use her wits to outsmart the Beldam and save herself and her real parents from being trapped there forever.

More often than not, a good scary movie is designed to intertwine a lesson among the scares, and Coraline does an outstanding job with the common trope of, “be careful what you wish for”. It remains a staple in my yearly Halloween movie binge because of its ability to teach that lesson while still being terrifying. Neil Gaiman, who wrote the book the film is based on, has a talent for blending the beautiful and the frightening which shines through with this story. At every turn we’re shown something that is bizarre, but beautiful… or just plain ugly. This is thanks to LAIKA Studios incredible craftsmanship, who vividly bring Coraline’s universe to life through stop-motion, a medium that lends itself to the characters so perfectly. Coraline’s movements are doll-like before we even meet her “little me” doll that the Beldam uses to spy on her. Also, the beldam moves with insect-like twitches. Stop-motion allows for the characters to easily become misshapen and frightening as Coraline’s dreamworld morphs into a nightmare. I have only watched this film as an adult, but something about the precocious Coraline and the wicked Beldam can transport me back to a childlike state of wonder. What would my other world be like? What wonders would the Beldam create for me to stay forever? As an only child just like Coraline, I found her to be instantly relatable. Without the company of siblings and friends, we’re forced to spend a lot of time in our own little worlds, and for our imagination to be able to put us and those we love in danger, is an unnerving reality.

I chose to write about Coraline this year because it’s having a bit of a cultural “moment”, and one that I feel is very well deserved. The feisty little girl with blue hair and yellow raincoat should be considered in good company with the likes of Hocus Pocus, Halloween Town, and many other “scary” movies that bring the family together around the TV during spooky season. Millennial parents are showing the film to their children and it’s reaching a new audience through official merchandise and Halloween costumes at stores like Hot Topic.  Some of my favorite Halloween memories are around the TV watching movies like Coraline with my family. These films act as a gateway to light the flame inside some of us to be life-long horror fans and I only wish there were more of them!

Happy Halloween!