Does THIS give you the creeps? Well buckle up, because things could have
been on a whole new level of creepy. 2019 marks the 10th YEAR that we’ve been
blessed with Laika’s beautiful stop motion adaptation of Neil Gaiman's “Coraline,”
which marks 10 years of people saying “that movie creeped me out too much!” “it gave
me nightmares for months!” “eww… buttons” H.O.W. Seriously, how?! Cute little girl in a bright yellow raincoat
and brilliant blue hair? There is literally a saying “cute as a button!” Haha Whoops quick rewind, I’m not here to
judge your/those fears and phobias, however odd they may be, but to let you know just
HOW MUCH CREEPIER this movie could have been. For starters, here is the book. LOOK AT THIS CREEPY COVER. LOOK AT IT! It is the stuff of expressionless, clay nightmares. I read it when I was a kiddo. It called to me. I may or may not have been a weirdo, but SUPER
CREEPY REGARDLESS. Notice: no blue hair, colorful clothing, adorable
buttons, bright palettes, or super expressive faces! The smock made me think the story took place
in an asylum or orphanage before I even started reading, so that really... ah... set the tone
for my experience. Coraline is very much alone, with only a candle,
and clawing shadows licking at her back. This is the stuff of glorious nightmare fuel,
and, to my over-imaginative kid self, it was everything. And weeks of night terrors. Gosh, did I love it. What I wouldn’t give to watch a film in
this more abstract clay style too! My bent weird heart is all aflutter just thinking
about it. But yeah, I read the book as a kid, and was
kinda freaked out with certain things that just didn’t make an appearance in the film,
so I decided to look into that more. I’m first and foremost a bookworm, so you
know I read the book through twice, and watched the movie twice, just to make sure I’m not
talking nonsense! And you know what? The book IS creepier! So, right off the rip, the decision to make
a more “cheerful” set and have “goofy” characters absolutely made the movie appeal
to more viewers. The music is light and airy and rather hopeful,
even if it has a bit of a melancholic vibe. The movie has more characters than the book,
so it feels less “lonely,” too. The order and timeline of events and pacing
is also VERY different in the movie, and little “extras” have been peppered in for flavor. (Is that INSTANT COFFEE!?!?! Terrifying!) I’m not at odds with any decisions whatsoever
here. They were all very smart, and in some cases,
necessary. Making things less dark so that more people
would see this awesome film, is great! Coraline is a strong little lady, afterall,
and it was heartwarming to see her on the big screen and read her tale in a heaven-scented
paperback book over and over again. Because the book and movie timelines are drastically
different, we’re going to be bouncing around quite a bit. I’m going to assume you’ve either read
the book or have seen the movie, because, hey, SPOILERS ABOUND. If you haven’t done either of these things:
DO ONE OR BOTH, then come back! Anyway, the timing of happenings DOES have
a significant impact on the “creep factor,” so buckle up, and lets unspool this thread! RIght into the Oven. In the book, we are thrown into DANGER right
off the rip. By page 8 of 163, we discover the Other Door,
which, unlike the small, child-sized portal in the movie, is huge and wooden and carved
with the most intricate of details. Large enough for something… unsettling…
to creep through, I darsay! We are in such danger, that, shortly after
discovering the door, Ms. Spink and Forcible have already read Coraline's tea leaves, given
her a charm, and issued vague warnings. (p. 20) Back on page 10, we are already seeing
shadows leading us to the door in the night. The movie waits until much later to show this
(gotta set it up just right!) and you know Coraline is in for a rough time of things
because LOOK AT THIS SKEWED CAMERA ANGLE! You KNOW things are (finally) about to get
freaky. Oh, yeah. You may have noticed I said “we discover”
when talking about the book door - that’s because in the book, we are essentially Coraline. We don’t get to see her (very expressive)
reactions to things. Things HAPPEN to her, to US. We are perched on her shoulder and experiencing
everything as she is, terrified and all! That alone turns the creepy aspects up a few
notches. RATS. Speaking of shadows in the night, RATS are
what make this a whole lotta creepier a whole lot sooner. In the movie, mice abound. The night after Coraline first opens the door,
sweet sweet paper mice magic themselves out of the portal and scurry around the house,
eventually leading Coraline to the (now open) portal door. She follows them because they look innocent
and cute, and why wouldn’t you want to follow a bounding bouncy ball mouse? At this (much sooner) point in the book, Coraline’s
mother has shut (but not locked) the Other Door as “it doesn’t go anywhere” she
says. That night Coraline is awakened by a “Crrreeee…
aaaaaccckk” and goes to investigate. She does NOT see a bounding cute round paper
mouse, but what she DOES see is “little more than a shadow, it scuttled down the darkened
hallway fast, like a little patch of night.” (p.10) The shape scurries under furniture
making its way back to the door, which is now ever so slightly ajar… And she shuts it. There is no cool, purple glowy tunnel to lure
her. Instead, Coraline goes back to bed, where
she “dreams of black shapes that slid from place to place, avoiding the light, until
they were all gathered together under the moon. Little black shapes with little red eyes and
sharp yellow teeth. They started to sing,
'We are small and we are many We are many and we are small
We were here before you see We will be here when you fall.' Their voices were high and whispery and slightly
whiney. They made Coraline uncomfortable.” (p. 11 - 12)
These shadow rats chant a few more times throughout the book, their song becoming a bit more scary
and a lot more threatening each time. In the movie, it’s Mice mice mice mice mice. Other Mr. Bobo has a delightful mouse circus. Mice do the Other Mother’s bidding and sound
adorable alarms. This mouse pretense is kept up until the Cat
reveals their true form to Coraline, and she begins to know the Other Mother’s true colors. In the book, the few mice we know of are “good,”
or, at least on our side. ONLY “the crazy man upstairs” (Coraline
does not find out his humorous name until the last few pages of the book!) has a mouse
circus, and those mice are the ones who warn us of dangers to come, whose whiskers droop
with the Other Mother’s mist first appears, and then tell us that those dangers have passed. The OTHER Mr. Bobo has a rat ah... “circus”
the whole time in the book, if you can call creepy chanting a circus. There is no pretense in the book - RATS are
EVERYWHERE. They are sometimes shadow, sometimes corporeal,
but always following the Other Mother’s orders. They are her “spies and hands” into the
Real World, and can traverse the corridor between the worlds without issue. They can even steal the key from Coraline’s
Real House while Coraline is in the Other World. These are pretty slippery foes, and the fact
that Other Mother and Father are cool with them right when we first meet them, put me
on edge that this world is SERIOUSLY skewed and alerted me to never trust anything right
from the start. The book handles the killing of the rat who
steals the final soul… a little.. ah.. more graphically. In the movie, the Cat presents a distraught
Coraline with a sand-filled rat head, which is still clutching the “eye” in its mouth. Eww, gross, yes. However, jumping to the book, after Coraline
falls and cries and loses all hope of escape, She opened her eyes and saw the rat. It was lying on the brick path on the bottom
of the stair with a surprised look across its face–which was now several inches away
from the rest of it. Its whiskers were still, its eyes were open
wide, its teeth visible and yellow and sharp. A collar of wet blood glistened at its neck.” Yeah. Blood. Not sand, not stuffing. Not a doll. Actual former-living-and-breathing-creature-blood. This is no imaginary world, living things
can die here. The movie Other Mother puppet spies have NOTHING
on this. Also, like I mentioned, RATS were the spies
into the real-world. Not the crafted puppets. Now, Rats EXIST in OUR real world. Like, yours and mine, right this very minute. They are alive and have blood, and blend with
shadows, and potentially work for another Other Mother. As a kid, while reading this book, I had a
family of the critters LIVING ABOVE MY BED. Forcibly scratching, frantically squeaking,
incessantly crawling up and down and scampering all around the wall. They would only come out at night, and I was
convinced they would claw their way through the ceiling and fall on me any time now. No one believed me, for weeks. No one took this seriously. I felt like book Coraline, bringing valid
scary things to light, and being ignored and dismissed by “grown ups.” So, to say this book hit close to home, is
an understatement. And having an overactive imagination? I was on high-alert for mysterious doors. Pssshht. Rats, man. The Other Mother Herself. Movie Other Mother at first really does resemble
Coraline's Real Mother, excluding the button eyes, naturally. Over the course of the movie, she becomes
elongated and more insect like, eventually looking like a nightmarish spider. Even in this form, however, she offers aid
to Coraline in the form of a ‘hint’ on where to find the lost eyes: in each of the
3 wonders she has created for her. Even if she has no intention of honoring her
word, the Other Mother at least does more for Coraline that she ever did in the book. Book Other Mother is a far-cry from Real Mother
right away. “She looked a little like Coraline’s mother. Only… Only her skin was white as paper. Only she was taller and thinner. Only her fingers were too long, and they never
stopped moving, and her dark red fingernails were cured and sharp.” (pg. 27). She has a full set of teeth, each of which
are a juuuust a bit too long. Her fingers constantly move like a “tired
butterfly” and “her shiny black hair twined and twisted about her neck and shoulders,
as if it were blowing in some wind that Coraline could not touch or feel.” (pg. 79) It has a mind of its own. Unlike in the movie, this Other Mother has
NO reflection in mirrors, which, according to her, “are never to be trusted” (p.101)
Is she a vampire? JUST WHAT IS A BELDAM?! She uses more than her mouth to speak “... her
voice did not just come from her mouth. It came from the mist, the fog, the house,
and the sky.” (p. 106)
Far from offering Coraline any help on the quest, she actively hinders her instead, sending
her to the mysterious empty flat next door (where the Other Mother has set a trap: fully
expecting the rotting Other Father to do Coraline in!), and pelting wind with shards of sand
and glass into Coraline’s face. Things bleed in this world, and the Other
Mother is no exception. At the end of the quest, when Coraline launches
the Cat at her, instead of just ripping off the button eyes, the Cat rips flesh. The Other Mother bleeds copious amounts of
“deep, tarry black ooze.” Again, what is she made of? She also eats RAW beetles, none of the chocolate-covered
stuff! Perhaps the creepiest thing about the Other
Mother is the fact that she KILLED HER OWN MOTHER. This is NOT something in the movie. “How do I know you’ll keep your word?”
asked Coraline. “I swear it,” said the other mother. “I swear it on my own mother’s grave.” “Does she have a grave?” asked Coraline
(sharp as ever, I might add!) “Oh yes,” said the other mother. “I put her there myself. And when I found her trying to crawl out,
I put her back.” (How is THAT for some foreshadowing?!) “Swear on something else. So I can trust you to keep your word.” “My right hand,” said the other mother,
holding it up. She waggled the long fingers slowly, displaying
clawlike nails. “I swear on that.” (p. 92) Ok, also, the HAND. Remember this bargain for reference later
in this video! The OTHER THEATER SHOW
While… um… unsettling in the movie in its own way, the book has Coraline in mortal
danger during the show… and there are no glitter vats to be had! (show old lady bouncing)
Book Coraline enters the Other Theater all alone, and is shown her seat by a talking
dog. Like in the movie, she is called to the stage,
but as a TARGET in a dagger throwing segment. She survives, and gets a box of chocolates
as a participation prize for not dying, and eats a piece. I remember thinking “this is like the myth
of Persephone and Hades - Coraline ate some metaphorical pomegranate seeds, she’s gotta
stay there now! Oh No!” One of the dogs by her discusses how you can
“never tell what you are going to get in the dark,” (referring to the chocolates)
which made me think she was eating bugs. It’s revealed that dogs eat in this world
is chocolate, which is obviously deadly in Coraline’s. She asks how long this show goes on for, and
they say “ever and always” (which is a common phrase in the book, and a hot tip that
not all is as great as it seems) and really freaks Coraline out to the point where she
gets up and walks out of the forever-repeating show, leaving her chocolates behind for the
dogs to devour. She KNOWS not all is right, and cannot possibly
stay the night. In the movie, she is having such a great time
that her other parents have to come by to collect her at the end of the day, and she
stays overnight a second time in that world! Coraline is seemingly more taken into the
Other World in the movie than in the book. Possibly because she’s always had her talisman
with her in the book! The OTHER UPSTAIRS FLAT
In the movie, Wybie and Coraline enjoy the mouse circus upstairs early on. The flat is so cool and there are lights and
popcorn and fun cannons everywhere! When Coraline goes back to collect the final
eye later, the attic is more or less the same, with the addition of the rat-composite Other
Mr. Bobo. In the book, instead of going upstairs for
the circus, 50 rats visit her in her ugly green-and-pink Other Bedroom and perform there. Even then, it’s not really a circus, but
ANOTHER one of those creepy chants. So, Coraline has never been to this Other
flat before going to retrieve the final soul, and what she experiences there is… kinda
creepy. The air is heavy and the ceiling is closing
in about her so tightly that she can reach up and touch it. The smell? Like “every exotic food left out to rot.” Everything is dark, and the RATS begin their
chant anew: We have eyes and we have nerveses
We have tails and we have teeth You’ll get all what you deserveses
When we rise from underneath.” p.117
By this point, Coraline has only briefly conversed with the Real “Crazy Old Man,” and only
once spoken to the Other “crazy old man” before to decline his offer for her to come
upstairs and “watch the rats feed.” (I don't even wanna know!) She doesn’t even know his name, other than
the “crazy man from upstairs.” So when he has a deep heart-to-heart with
her, accurately pinpointing her frustrations and issues with the Real World, trying to
convince her to stay in this Other World, it’s very unsettling, especially because
the whispery disembodied voice keeps pace with her to every room she passes through…
and of course we know what happens from here! (He is made of rats!) The DECAYING CREATIONS
In the movie, after awhile the Other Mother’s creations start to go to seed. Other Father looks crazy, then gets a bit
runny, and the Other Spink and Forcible look like pulled Taffy. The Other furniture is revealed to be bugs
(which, major props to this thematic detail!) caught in a web. However, the book did it creepier. THIS is what gave me nightmares and shivers. Not the sewing of button eyes, but the rich
descriptions of the Creations decaying. Let’s have a look! Coraline’s first unpleasant encounter with
the Other Father? “There was something vague about his face
– like bread dough that had begun to rise, smoothing out the bumps and cracks and depressions. (p. 70) Ok, cool. We’re getting clay-like, like on the cover
of the book. But then the theater dogs?! “There were things up there, hairless, jellyish. She thought they might have once had faces…”
(p. 100) Wait, these things are now GOOPY and clay-ish and runny?! There is decidedly NO stuffing and sand in
this world, it’s all decaying organic matter! Miss Spink and Forcible are not contained
in a candy wrapper, but in a insect sac. It clings Coraline’s hair and clothes the
way a spider web would. The whole Other theater is covered in the
stuff as well. The two Other actresses are still intertwined
inside, but they are cold, slippery, covered in slime, and “horribly unformed and unfinished,
as if two plasticine people had been warmed and rolled together, squashed and pressed
into one thing…. And then the eyes opened, four black buttons
glinting and staring down at her, and two voices that sounded like no voice that Coraline
had ever heard began to speak to her. One of the wailed and whispered, the other
buzzed like a fat and angry bluebottle at a windowpane.” (p. 101)
So, we are getting a more and more bloaty, decaying, slimy story about the creations
dying, but when we get to the final scene with the Other Father, things get… gross. Coraline finds (and smells) … something…
under a pile of rubbish in one corner of the Other empty flat’s basement cellar - mixed
in about the decaying curtains and mildewy boxes and newspaper. It smells horribly of sour wine and moldy
bread here, and as she goes to leave, Coraline spots a foot at the bottom of the trash pile. P. 110: “... something more or less the
size and shape of a person. In that dim light it took her several seconds
to recognize it for what it was: the thing was pale and swollen like a grub, with thin,
sticklike arms and feet. It had almost no features on its face, which
had puffed and swollen like risen bread dough. The thing had two large black buttons where
its eyes should have been….A mouth opened in the mouthless face, strands of pale stuff
sticking to the lips, and a voice that no longer even faintly resembled her father’s
whispered, ‘Coraline.’ The creatures twiglike hands moved to its
face and pushed the pale clay about, making something like a nose. …”The thing was white, and huge, and swollen. Monstrous, thought Coraline, but also miserable.” She takes pity on it, being relegated down
here for upsetting the Other Mother by saying too much. It is blobby, and hairless, and sticky and
tacky like warm bread dough. Unlike in the movie, where the Other Father
ends up helping her retrieve the 1st eye, in the book he is unable to resist the Other
Mother’s demand to ensnare Coraline. The shape that was her father grows. It inflates. It writhes, awaiting instructions, and then
quick as lightning slithers up the stairs towards her. We have a very narrow escape through the trapdoor,
and are thoroughly done with this Other World. Sheesh. Only a few more things to find! The CORRIDOR - A MOST ANCIENT BEAST
This tunnel between worlds starts off kinda pretty in the movie! Behind the small, whimsical, perfectly child-sized
door is an erie glowy purple entrance to a kids-only cosmos. As the story progresses it fades into what
looks like a cluttered attic or crawl space, with detritus and junk sprawled everywhere,
and finally, to a cobweb-infested trap. Now, in the book, this liminal space is…
alive. Behind the HUGE ornate Narnia-gone-wrong door
is something “ancient, deep and slow.” Coraline picks up on this on her first foray
into the Other World. It’s a “dark hallway, with a cold, musty
smell, like something very old and very slow. Where strange voices whispered and distant
winds howled. Coraline became certain there was something
in the dark behind her. Something very old and very slow.” This is not your funhouse purple tunnel, and
we are definitely not alone! When Coraline goes back into the tunnel to
save her parents, she notes to the Cat that the tunnel is shorter than she remembers it,
like it’s trying to get her back in quickly. On our escape back to the Real World, the
tunnel is most certainly uphill and much much longer than it ever had been. The walls also feel “warm and yielding,
and as if they were covered in a find downy fur. It moved, as if it were taking a breath.” A few moments later, after a howling wind,
Coraline reaches to stabilize herself again, but “this time, what she touched felt hot
and wet, as if she had put her hand in somebody’s mouth…” (p.136) She trips on the Other
Mother’s hand, but knows she MUST keep moving because “whatever that corridor was was
older by far than the other mother. It was deep and slow, and it knew that she
was there…” Clearly, this tunnel is alive, and I have
some theories, but we’ll save those for another time! Just… if we thought the Other Mother was
creepy, this tunnel is indicative of some next level terror! The LACK OF ADULTS, and being ALL ALONE
No matter how awful things get in the movie, Coraline for the most part has real people
in her corner back in the Real World. Her parents don’t go missing until a few
days of visiting the Other World, and even then, there are still neighbors about, offering
aid in the form of chams and advise. Now, in the book, Coraline's parents disappear
RIGHT AFTER her first half evening trip into the Other World. She doesn't even stay the night, and already
her parents are out of the picture. She bumps into Miss Spink in the fog, who
prattles on about telling her parents something, deaf to Coraline’s plight about them being
missing, and now being a “single-child family.” Spink also mentions that both of the actresses
will be out of town visiting a niece tomorrow, leaving Coraline even more alone, with no
adults to help. (in the movie at this point, they make her
the talisman) In true Home Alone fashion, Coraline fends for herself: she breaks her
savings and goes shopping for food and other staples, and generally holds down the fort
until the next night… when her parents still are not home. She sees her them trapped in a mirror, they
write “SU PLEH” on the fog, similar to the movie (although this happens DAYS later
in that). She calls the police to tell them her parents
have been KIDNAPPED, but the officer just benignly tell her she’s simply had a nightmare
and to tell her mother to fix her a hot cocoa. Because that makes all things right. Man, adults are really oblivious! Knowing that she is truly all alone, and no
one will believe or help her, makes this book so scary and creepy. WE are truly alone with her. No help to be had. After DAYS of being on her own, Coraline then
dons a dressing gown and slippers, and, because she will not eat the Other Mother’s food,
a few apples, to go back into the Other World to save her parents. The END, The HAND, The LAST TASK. Remember that bargain the Other Mother made
in the book with Coraline? The one where she swore on her “right hand?” This is where it comes back into play. In the movie, after a delightful gardening
party that really warms the whole tone of the movie, the children Coraline saved visit
her in a dream and tell her she must get rid of the key, because the Other Mother will
never stop looking for it. The metallic hand, meanwhile, follows Coraline
back into the real world in search of the key, although Coraline is not really aware
of it until it attacks her and nearly kills Wybie. She traps it because it was it or them. Her primary focus was to get rid of the key,
not get rid of the hand. In the book, Coraline is very aware that the
bone white hand has followed her into the Real World. This is somehow creepier because it’s an
organic hand, not metallic, that has been lopped off in the Other Door. It tries to trip her up as she escapes the
tunnel. It nearly scratches THROUGH Coraline's bedroom
window GLASS in an attempt to get the key. It attacks the actresses’ dog, leaving a
huge gash in Hamish’s side. Coraline's tea leaves say that all is well,
except for the hand shape that has clung to the side of the teacup. This hand is Trouble with a capital “T.”
In the movie, she traps the hand in the well because it attacks her. In the book, she has to devise a way to kill
it because, according to the ghostly child in her dream: “The bedlam swore by her good
right hand… but she lied.” Coraline knows this hand will always stalk
her, and hurt those around her, and their dogs! She must devise a cunning trick to trap the
hand. Using the well “that if one was to fall
in the well 8and look up, they would see a sky full of stars, even in the day-time,”
she feigns nonchalance and bravely sets up a creepy picnic with dolls and toys. She stretches a blanket over the well, weighs
it down with teacups of water, and sets the key in the center waiting for the bone Hand
to make its move. All goes to plan, and the murderous hand is
trapped in the well… WITH THE KEY. In both the book and the movie, I gotta say…
this is terrifying. Irresponsible. Nightmarish. THIS CYCLE WILL CONTINUE! Especially because the Cat proves there are
still portals open - there could be one down in the well as well! Oh well. So, after rereading the book a few more times,
and watching the jaw-dropping animation a few more as well, I think that my childhood
read on the book was, in fact, creepier! There are decaying creations, gory details,
and dire situations that just weren’t in the movie. Also, TONS MORE Rats. *shiver.* Now, don’t
get me wrong, both are AMAZING. I just don’t get the visceral reaction from
the cute animation that I did from the book, although I can see how some people would - it’s
like how the Boogie Man from The Nightmare Before Christmas haunted my dreams and days
for years. I still cringe and twinge at that part in
that animation! Anyway, those are my bookwormy thoughts on
“How Coraline could have been Creepier!” I thoroughly enjoyed both the movie and the
book, as different as they are. But what are some of your thoughts? Something you found beyond creepy? Your favorite moment from either one? Let me know in the comments below, and I will
love you forever and always ;) Thank you for checking out this nerdy video
about a charming creepy movie and book! It was a bit different, but a whole lot of
fun to make. If you like what I do here, pretty please
subscribe, and ding that little bell thing! Ok, see you sooon! Good bye!!!!
