Coraline: The scariest kids movie of all time?

Spoiler Alert with Jimmy Nichols

After watching “Twitches” for the first time last week, I wanted to watch another movie that I missed growing up.

The first time I watched “Coraline” was last year on TikTok. It seemed like a fun movie, but watching it that way was hard because it was cut up to avoid copyright.

This year I decided to rewatch the movie, but on Hulu, to see what the movie is really like when it is not cut into 50 parts.

Before we talk about the 2009 movie’s plot, it is worth noting its animation style. It is a stop-motion film.

This helps the movie stand out compared to other animated Halloween movies, and it adds to the unique aesthetic of the movie.

The movie sets the tone immediately in its opening credits sequence as the audience watches Other Mother take apart and assemble dolls in the Other World.

In her world, Coraline is often the only part of her scenes with color, because of her iconic blue hair and yellow raincoat. While in the Other World, everything is full of color.

This is because Coraline sees her world as dull, while the Other World is exciting and new. However, the colors are not the only difference between the two worlds.

Her parents, in the real world, are busy and do not give her any attention. They write articles about the best ways to tend to a garden, but Coraline finds it boring because they do not want to go out and build the garden at their new house.

In the Other World, her parents pay attention to her, grow in the garden and give her anything she wants. Everything in the Other World is the opposite.

Her new friend Wybie, which is short for Why Born, talks a lot in the real world, but in the Other World he has his mouth sewn shut. The only thing that is the same between the two worlds, other than Coraline, is a stray black cat.

In her world, the cat seems to understand what is being said, but in the Other World, the cat talks and explains to her the dangers of Other Mother.

Coraline receives warnings from several different characters telling her to avoid the Other World. The first warning comes in the first five minutes, as Wybie says that his grandmother normally does not rent the house to people with kids.

Mice lead Coraline to a secret door the first time, which is the entrance to the Other World. After her first visit, Mr. Bobinsky, one of her neighbors who is a circus performer, warns her, saying the mice told him that she should not go through the door again.

Another neighbor, Miss Spink, also warns Coraline when she reads the protagonist’s tea leaves. She sees an oddly shaped hand that means danger to Coraline.

However, she takes none of these warnings seriously as she thinks her neighbors are weird.

But the most obvious thing that happens, which Coraline should have taken as a warning, is that when she arrives in the Other World, everyone has buttons for eyes. This is in reference to the opening credits scene of the Other Mother sewing the dolls, and the mysterious doll that looks just like her.

As the movie continues, Coraline spends more time in the Other World but soon begins to see the cracks in the world. The red flags finally click for Coraline when Other Mother says that for Coraline to stay in their world, she needs to sew buttons in her eyes.

When Coraline refuses, the Other World starts falling apart, and the audience sees how Other Mother controls everything in this world.

Other Wybie is mute, and when he tries to warn Coraline, the Other Mother sews his mouth shut. Other Father is forced to be silent, and at the end, when he is trying to capture her, it is clear he is being forced to attack his “daughter.”

As a grown adult, these next scenes are not scary to me, but I imagine that for those who watched this for the first time when they were seven, I can understand if they have a little scarring from it.

The scene in question is when Other Mother turns into a slender, spider-like creature when Coraline says she will not replace her eyes with buttons.

Coraline discovers the souls of all the past children who were killed and learns to free their souls; she needs to find their eyes. Before she can free the kids, Coraline has to escape because Other Mother is tired of Coraline disobeying her.

However, her real parents are kidnapped, forcing Coraline back into the Other World to defeat the Other Mother. The closing sequence sees Other Mother transform into her true form as Coraline collects the eyes of the lost children, freeing their souls, which disintegrate the Other World.

Coraline saves the lost kids' souls, destroys the Other World and returns with her real parents to the real world. It is a happy ending to the children’s movie that showed an arachnid creature trying to steal a little girl’s eyes.

Overall, it is a good movie. It is visually pleasing because of the colors and different animation styles.

Even if you are a grown adult, this is still a fun movie to watch and will help get you ready for the horror movie watch-a-longs closer to Halloween.