The solo feature debut of Hillsboro-based animation studio Laika, Coraline is a Stop Motion horror film based on the book of the same name, and adapted and directed by Henry Selick (of The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach fame). It was released on February 6, 2009, and was the first stop-motion movie filmed with a 3-D camera (however, the 3-D showings were only in limited locations for a few weeks).
Coraline Jones (Dakota Fanning) moves from Pontiac, Michigan with her parents Mel (Teri Hatcher) and Charlie (John Hodgman) to the Pink Palace Apartments, an old house subdivided into three residences, in Ashland, Oregon. With her parents frantically working on a gardening catalog in order to make ends meet, and thus not paying much attention to her, Coraline begins to feel neglected. While exploring the house, she discovers a small door with a brick wall behind it. That night, she is awoken by a mouse in her room, which she chases to the small door. She opens it, but instead of a brick wall, she finds a long, glowing passage, leading to another world.
At the other end, Coraline finds herself in the "Other World", which is inhabited by her "Other Mother" and "Other Father", idealized doubles of her parents (except for the black buttons sewn into their eyes) who pay close attention to Coraline and spoil her with treats. After enjoying a home-cooked meal made by the Other Mother, she spends the night in the Other World and awakens back in her bed in the real world.
Coraline continues to go to the Other World at night and is entertained by the various delights present, including idealized versions of her neighbors, a beautiful garden built in her image, and delicious food. Coraline begins to prefer the Other World to her real one, finding that her Other Parents give her all the love and attention she lacks at home. Eventually, the Other Mother offers to let Coraline stay in their world forever, on one condition:
She has to have buttons sewn into her eyes.
When she refuses, things quickly take a dark turn as the Other Mother attempts to force Coraline to stay in her world. Coraline must rely on her bravery and wits to get back home.
The film contains the following examples:
- Abominable Auditorium: The Other World has its own theater run by the Other Miss Spink and the Other Miss Forcible; it seems a little bit on the grotesque side at first, given that the audience is composed entirely of dogs, while the only two performers are two old ladies performing a Bawdy Song and getting into a fight onstage β up until the Other Spink and Forcible unzip their skins and reveal their beautiful true selves in an impressive display of acrobatics. It's actually yet another one of the Other Mother's attempts to lure Coraline to her death; in the finale, as the glamour surrounding the other world breaks down, the theater becomes a haunting ruin, the audience has become a menacing flock of bat-dogs hanging from the ceilings, and the Other Spink and Forcible have been merged into a nightmarish taffy-like fusion.
- Abuse Escalation: The Other Mother initially seems like everything Coraline's distant real mother isn't, lavishing her with affection, attention, and presents. However, as the film goes on, her behaviour becomes progressively more controlling and abusive: first, there's her habit of instinctively correcting Coraline whenever she brings up her real parents, encouraging her to think of the Other Mother and Father as her "better" parents; then, she watches Coraline while she sleeps; then, to stop Coraline from asking questions, she forces strawberries into her mouth. Then there's the fact that the Other Wybie and the Other Father are being altered or even hurt to stop them from sharing information with Coraline. Then, when Coraline nervously turns down the offer to stay in the Other World forever, the Other Mother prevents her from waking up in the real world, effectively trapping her - and soon after, accidentally reveals that the rats are spying on her; when Coraline attempts to confront her over all this, the Other Mother partly reverts to her true form to terrify her, grabs her by the nose, and flings her into a sealed room that she won't be allowed to leave until she's willing "to be a loving daughter." For good measure, this sealed room is where she's keeping the ghosts of the other three children that she's ensnared and fed upon over the decades. The abusive tendencies soon extend to kidnapping Coraline's parents, roping her into a Deadly Game just to win the right to own her as a daughter, and then torturing, forcibly transforming, and even killing any of the Other World counterparts that Coraline might have befriended - and letting her see the results just to cause her the maximum level of pain and grief.
- Accidental Misnaming: In the real world, all the neighbors call the titular character "Caroline", which she hates. One of the more subtle appealing differences of the Other World is that everybody says her name correctly.
- Act of True Love: After the Other Mother imprisons Coraline in a mirror, the Other Wybie drags Coraline out and shoves her through the door leading to her world, even though he can't follow her without turning to dust and is at the mercy of the Other Mother in his own world. The Other Mother created him to be Coraline's friend, and he chooses to protect her even at the cost of defying his creator. It costs him his life.
- Actually Pretty Funny: Even when Coraline is being antagonistic to Wybie, she can't help giggling at his antics with the banana slug.
- Adaptational Attractiveness:
- In the film, the Other Mother starts off looking very similar to Coraline's mother, with her button-eyes being the most obvious difference, then transforms into a creepier, taller, skinnier form. The book has her in the latter form from the start.
- Inverted later in the film as well. The Other Mother's final form doesn't look anywhere near so monstrous in the book.
- Adaptational Jerkass: In order to make it more obvious why Coraline abandons her parents so willingly, in the movie both of her parents are more actively neglectful than in the book because of work-induced stress, needing to finish a big project just to make ends meet. Whereas in the book they simply don't pay much attention to her, in the movie her mother is loudly frustrated at Coraline's interruptions, and brushes her off.
- Adaptational Job Change: While Miss Spink and Miss Forcible still worked in theatre in their youth, various posters around their apartment imply that they were burlesque performers who appeared in racy parodies of Shakespeare, rather than straightforward Shakespearean actors as in the novel.
- Adaptational Location Change: This version of Coraline takes place in the United States instead of England. Spink and Forcible remain British.
- Adaptational Timespan Change: In the book, the first visit to the Other World covers most of its highlights and includes the Other Mother's proposal for Coraline to stay. The film, with its greater length, extends the establishment of the Other World across multiple visits interspersed with the real world's counterparts being established in between, leaving the proposal to stay as a more pronounced midway turning point for the story.
- Adaptation Dye-Job: Literally. In the book, Coraline has brown hair. In the film, her hair is blue, but a picture of Coraline when she was younger has her with brown hair, implying it's dyed in-universe, which seems consistent with her fashion sense.
- Adaptation Expansion: Gaiman himself requested this trope. He saw that the original script was almost exactly like the book, and told them to make some changes. After all, if someone wanted something exactly like the book, they could just read the book.
- The Other World is introduced more slowly across multiple visits before the creepiness kicks in. In the book, most of the Other World is covered during Coraline's first visit, and the button-eye proposal is made at the end of that first visit.
- The garden is utterly insignificant to the book. It's been promoted to a wonder of the Other World here, and during the hunt for the ghost children it's guarded by the Other Father. In the book version of the hunt, the Other Father is closed off in a basement in the empty flat, which ends up as a dead end.
- The new character of Wybie is there to help explain some of the backstory of the place, and later give Coraline a person to express her thoughts to so she doesn't have to talk to herself.
- The Coraline doll is shown to be a tool of the Other Mother who uses it to stalk her victims. The beginning even shows her repurposing the previous design to remake it in Coraline's form.
- More backstory is given to Coraline and her parents, explaining why they ignore her so much and why she would be willing to abandon them for a dream world so casually.
- It's mentioned that the Other Mother can only shape existing materials in the book, but the movie makes this more apparent, with the denizens of the Other World being inanimate objects that are connected in some way to the real people they turn into, and slowly deteriorating into those inanimate forms as the Other Mother's control slips.
- The history of the Other Mother is shown to have an existing human connection in the form of Mrs. Lovat, the landlady, whose sister was the Other Mother's most recent victim.
- Adaptation Name Change: The crazy old man upstairs has his name changed from Mr. Bobo to Mr. Bobinsky.
- Adaptation Species Change: In the book the Other Father in his final form is described as being more of a grub-like blob monster that struggles to help Coraline. Here the Other Father slowly becomes a pumpkin to reference the garden he works in.
- Adapted Out:
- The book implies that the door led to an empty apartment which was bricked off, and the last third includes scenes in the Other empty apartment, particularly its basement and bedroom. None of these points are in the last third of the film, as the garden replaces the bedroom and cellar in one.
- The tunnel passageway Coraline traverses each time to get into the Other World has a physical presence in the book, and is fleshy and covered in fur the last time she goes through it. It is something that Coraline suspects is far older and more dangerous than the Other Mother, and so cannot control. This isn't mentioned in the movie but for a mention that the Other Mother didn't make the passageway herself.
- Advertising by Association: The movie was promoted as "From the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas", leading many people to believe that the movie is by Tim Burton. Actually, it's Henry Selick who directed both movies, and Burton was only the producer of The Nightmare Before Christmas, and had no involvement in Coraline.
- Always Night: The Other World is like this in the film, whereas it reflects the time of day in the real world in the book.
- Ambiguous Situation: Played With: The cat notes that the Other Mother's actions appear to come from desperately wanting to be loved... and then immediately notes that it might be because she's desperately hungry. The ghost kids DO say the Other Mother eventually ate them, and when Coraline manages to escape the Other Mother, she begins desperately screaming that she'll DIE without Coraline, which is either because she wants to dote on Coraline, or because she'll starve to death.
- Anti-Escapism Aesop: What Coraline ultimately learns throughout the filmβThere's no place like home... even if it doesn't seem enjoyable at first.
- Apartment Complex of Horrors: Coraline's family moves to a boring, run-down place known as The Pink Palace Apartments (actually a house divided into three separate living spaces) with neighbors that are a bit strange, but the true source of horrors is a small door in her apartment. During the day, it has only a brick wall behind it, but at night, it's a door to another world with idealized versions of her parents and neighbors that only want to make her happy. It's a trap: the Other World is governed by the creature Coraline calls the Other Mother, who lures children into consenting her to replace their eyes with buttons so she can eat them. One of her victims was the twin sister of the now-old owner of the apartments.
- Arc Symbol: A thin and bony hand, which appears not just in the opening, but also in a flash of lightning during Coraline's first trip to the Other Mother's world and then in Coraline's tea leaves the day after. This represents her control over the Other World, but it also turns out to represent the last surviving part of the Other Mother: her hand.
- Argument of Contradictions: Miss Spink and Miss Forcible have a couple of these.
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: This happens to the ghost children when Coraline releases their souls and they ascend to some kind of heavenly afterlife.
- Backup from Otherworld: The ghost children aid Coraline into closing the door that the Other Mother is trying to open in an attempt to prevent her from escaping.
- Bat Out of Hell: The Other Spink and Forcible's dog audience turns into bat creatures when things get dark, serving as a parallel to the angel costumes the real ladies' dogs get when they die. Coraline weaponizes the bat-dogs' aggression to hold off the Other Spink and Forcible monster.
- Bawdy Song: The "Sirens of the Sea" segment is essentially a "tits vs. ass" song with each "siren" extolling the virtues of said body parts in seducing men. And it's sung by half-naked old women, one of whom has a pair of ridiculously massive breasts. Coraline's response sums up how the parents must feel when they see this.Coraline: Oh my God!
- Be Careful What You Wish For: The main moral of the story. Coraline wishes she had different parents, ones who dote on her, and she gets that. It just so happens that her Other Parents are horrific monsters.
- Beetle Maniac: The Other Mother offers living cocoa beetles to Coraline, who politely declines the unusual treat.
- Beneath the Mask: Horribly shown with the Other Mother after we discover the real reason she invited Coraline to her world.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: The last touch of whimsy we see in the Other World is the Other Mother's transformation of the living room, with insect decor and living bug furniture. π This example contains a TRIVIA entry. It should be moved to the TRIVIA tab.
Word of God is that this is a misguided extrapolation of Coraline's dragonfly hair clips, which the Other Mother takes as her being a "bug enthusiast". - Big Damn Heroes:
- Coraline very nearly loses the final child's eyes to the Other Bobinsky's rat, but luckily the cat manages to catch it just before the timer ends.
- Wybie triumphantly arrives just in time to rescue Coraline from the Other Mother, though he crashes his bike and must work with Coraline to finally defeat her.
- Bigger on the Inside:
- The Other Spink and Forcible's theater is absolutely massive compared to the exterior size of the house. Of course, the Other Mother created it, so normal laws of physics need not apply.
- This also applies to the Other Mr. Bobinsky's circus tent.
- Big "NO!":
- Charlie Jones does this when Coraline accidentally erases all of his work on his computer.
- Coraline lets one out when she loses the green stone to the rats and then the balcony she's on collapses.
- Bittersweet Ending: For Wybie's grandmother at least. Her twin sister still died, and has moved onto the afterlife thanks to Coraline freeing her soul. But it's implied that Coraline and Wybie will tell her what happened with the Other Door and the Other Mother starving, so she'll live with the peace of knowing that the children are safe and her sister was avenged. She ends the movie gardening with Coraline and the neighbors, showing she'll be less of a recluse.
- Bizarre Dream Rationalization: Coraline initially assumes the Other World exists only in her dreams, as the first two times she goes there is in the middle of the night, and ends up right back in her bed in the morning.
- Black-and-Gray Morality: Well, more like black and really light/almost-white gray morality. Coraline begins as a grouchy girl frustrated with moving and her constantly busy parents, but gets better as the movie goes on. Her parents mean well but are tired and constantly overworked, Wybie is a good friend but socially awkward, and the neighbors are quirky, but overall good people. Even some of the Other Worlders are mostly good. Other Father and Other Wybie legitimately like and care for Coraline and help her, but are ultimately done in by Other Mother, the only truly evil character of the movie.
- Blowing a Raspberry: After her first encounter with Wybie, Coraline cheekily blows a raspberry in the direction he rode off, a playful yet defiant gesture that emphasizes her disdain for him.
- Body Horror: This happens to the creations of the Other Mother once the Other World starts to come apart. It's a bit more surreal here than in the booknote for example, the Other Father becomes a pumpkin rather than a grub-like blob, and the Other Spink and Forcible are melted together like the book, but this is because they turn into taffy, but no less frightening.
- Bond Villain Stupidity: After she's been trapped in the Other World, Coraline tricks the Other Mother into opening the door back to the real world (under the pretense that her parents have been hidden there) to create an escape route. Since the Other Mother spends some time gloating about Coraline being stupid, Coraline is able to think quickly and distract her, escaping through the still-open door back to her home.
- Bookends: The film begins and ends with a very similar pan over the Pink Palace Apartments.
- Breakfast for Dinner: The Other Mother serves breakfast, including waffles and omelets, for dinner as part of her attempts to come off as fun and whimsical. Coraline tells the Other Father, "It's time for dinner... breakfast... food?" When he's enjoying the waffles, he says, "I love dinner-breakfast-food!"
- Brick Joke:
- The bowl of candy owned by Miss April Spink and Miss Miriam Forcible. It's later used to Coraline's advantage when she has to help the ghost children, save her parents, and stop the Beldam, as Spink and Forcible transform it into the stone with a hole in it that Coraline uses to find the ghost children's souls.
- Overlapping with Bookends, Coraline's first interaction with her mom has her accusing her of hating dirt despite writing about gardening for a living. Their last interaction in the movie has the mom admitting to her daughter (and herself) that she was right about her aversion to dirt.
- The Burlesque of Venus: The Other Miss Forcible's performance at the theater. Emphasis on "burlesque".
- Buxom Beauty Standard: Played for laughs and Fan Disservice in the "Sirens of the Sea" segment, which has the old Ms. Forcible singing about the appeal of her huge breasts, all while wearing a tiny Seashell Bra, much to Coraline's shock.Ms. Forcible: But a true ocean goddess,
Must fill out her bodice,
To present an alluring display! - Cerebus Call-Back: In the third act, when the Other Mother is done trying to entice Coraline with the Other World, its previously enchanting and friendly sights and people turn twisted and threatening as they devolve into the materials from which they were created. The Other Father's mantis machine turns into a deadly robot controlling him against his will, the Other Spink and Forcible turn into a fused-together taffy monster while their dogs become batlike and vicious, and Mr. Bobinski is reduced to a swarm of feral rats that were once his jumping mice.
- Changed My Mind, Kid: Wybie returns to help Coraline get rid of the black key and the Other Mother's right hand after dismissing her as crazy earlier.
- Character Development: Coraline goes from a whiny, snarky, and rude kid to being more appreciative of what she has and kinder to her parents, neighbors, and Wybie.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- The control knob on the mantis-mobile, the circus ball the mice use, and the pearl on the Other Forcible's ring. Each contains the eyes of one of the previous victims of the Other Mother, which need to be taken back to the real world for them to have a happy afterlife.
- The Other Mother's chicken oven mitt, which gets repurposed by the other Wybie to hide his disfigured Glasgow Smile.
- Coraline's hat and garden shears. She uses the shears to cut herself loose from flowers that attack her in the final act, and takes out a swarm of bugs stealing her seeing stone by throwing her hat.
- The snow globes on the Jones' mantelpiece. The Other Mother later hides the Jones parents in the Other copy of their favorite snow globe.
- The deep well near the Pink Palace proves to be an excellent place to dispose of the key to the Other World and the remains of the Beldam's right hand.
- The Other Father's piano. As he mentions, he only needs to wear the mechanical gloves, and it "plays him". At the end, he's been hooked up to the mantis vehicle and is forced to use it to attack Coraline by the mechanical gloves, which are now attached to it.
- Wybie has a pair of tongs which he uses to hunt for banana slugs, and in the final encounter he uses them to snatch up the Other Mother's hand and take it off of Coraline.
- Chekhov's Gunman: The cat starts out in a very minor role, but once he shows up in the Other World where he can speak, he becomes one of the most important characters. He kills the rat that stole the last ghost eye, saving Coraline from losing the game and becoming trapped forever.
- Chess with Death: Coraline challenges the Other Mother to an exploring game: she'll search for the ghost children's hidden eyes and for her parents, and if she succeeds all of them will get to leave safely, but if she fails she'll have to stay with the Other Mother forever.
- The Cloudcuckoolander Was Right: When he first meets Coraline, Bobinsky tells her that the mice have warned for her "not to go into little door," and they called her "Coraline" rather than "Caroline" like all of her adult neighbors do. Coraline only realizes the reason for the warning when the Other Mother won't let her leave the Other World.
- Cobweb of Disuse: There are a few in the Other Mother's workshop, as seen in the opening credits, implying the length of time since her last activity...and how long she can go without feeding.
- Color Motifs: The real world is rather dreary in contrast to the much more vibrant Other World. Once the illusion falls apart, the color begins to drain from the Other World, and the real world becomes a bit brighter once Coraline realizes that it's her true home.
- Conspicuous Gloves: Wybie (and the Other Wybie). In real Wybie's case, it may be down to the fact he's seen riding a bike most of the time. That, and there's a poison oak bush near the Pink Palace. Later in the film, Other Wybie removes his glove to show Coraline he's just sawdust.
- Costume Porn: The costume designs are all amazing, and for miniatures no less! The models' clothes were made by a woman using the exact same techniques she would use for full-size costumes, but with to-scale needles the size of human hairs.
- Crapsaccharine World: The Other World. At first glance, it seems to be a dream world that's far preferable to the dull real world, but once the Other Mother's magic starts wearing off, it starts becoming a nightmare world.Cat: You probably think this world is a dream come true... but you're wrong.
- Creepy Children Singing: The bulk of the soundtrack has children singing a melody in nonsense words.
- Creepy Circus Music: When Coraline visits the Other Bobinsky again to retrieve a ghost eye from him, the music (not surprisingly) has a faint resemblance to circus music, but in a very creepy tone.
- Creepy Doll: A doll modeled after Coraline's likeness shows up early on in the movie. The Other Mother uses it to spy on her prey, remaking it to match each of her victims.
- Curb-Stomp Cushion: The Beldam is much too strong and fast for Coraline or the black cat to fight at length and can easily overpower them, forcing them to run from her and Coraline to lock the door to the other world to escape during the climax. However, during the endeavor, after being thrown by Coraline. the cat claws out the Beldam's button eyes, blinding her, and Coraline manages to kick her in the face so she can close the door on her.
- Curse Cut Short: Charlie Jones asking Coraline for some magic mud.Charlie Jones: Do you have any more of that magic mud? 'Cause I got a case of writer's rash, on my aβMel Jones: Ah-hem!
- Cute Approaches Camera: The black cat wakes up Coraline in this fashion, with his face right up in the camera and filling almost the entire frame.
- Dangerously Garish Environment: Downplayed and then inverted. The Other World is always at its most bright and colorful when Coraline is being enticed to stay, but when Coraline struggles and rejects the Other Mother, it becomes increasingly weird and sinister, especially once Coraline's game with the Other Mother starts in earnest. Eventually it starts decaying into grey stone, and then a White Void Room.
- Darkest Hour: Coraline discovers the horrible truth about the Other Mother, but Wybie doesn't believe her, and her parents have disappeared, having been kidnapped by the Other Mother/Beldam.
- Dark Is Evil: The Other World is in a constant state of nightfall, which makes things look pretty threatening in the third act during the exploring game, and the rooms are more dimly-lit in the climax than they were earlier.
- Dark Reprise: "Alone" is the sadder version of the song played at the second half of "Installation".
- Death by Adaptation: The adder stone, in a case of this happening to an object rather than a person. In the book, Coraline returns it to Miss Spink after the Other Mother's hand goes down the well. In the movie, the Other Mother gets her hands on it and throws it into the fireplace in front of Coraline so she can't use it to find the snowglobe with her parents in it.
- Deliberately Monochrome: As the Other Mother loses control of the Other World, the different zones become completely grayed out and eventually collapse into a white void. The Other Mother also loses color, lacking the red of her earlier outfits and her skin turning bone-white.
- Design Student's Orgasm: For a stop-motion animated film, there's loads of stunning and masterfully done visuals here and there, especially in the scenes where the Other World starts to disappear.
- Died Happily Ever After: After Coraline retrieves the eyes of the kids the Other Mother ate, they are freed from the Other World, and she later visits them in heaven. However, granted, by this time they're already dead, and when they actually died it was certainly not happy.
- Door Focus: After Coraline discovers the (locked) door to the Other World but before she's able to open it, the camera ominously lingers on it. We even get to see some creatures passing through it at night. In a Bookends way, after Coraline escapes the now maybe destructed Other World and locks the entrance, the camera again focuses on it as something terrific appears to be trying to hit it open. It doesn't, however because of the Rule of Scary.
- Double Entendre: When at the family dinner table, the Other Father makes a joke about the food to the Other Mother while saying grace.The Other Father: We give thanks and like to bless, our mother's golden chicken breast! (laughs)
- Dropped Ice Cream of Sadness: A picture in Coraline's living room shows a sad boy in blue whose ice cream has fallen off his cone. When Coraline first arrives in the Other World, she notices that the picture in this living room shows a happy boy in blue holding a cone that has the ice cream on it.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Coraline goes through a lot, but in the end, she thwarts the Beldam, rescues her parents, and frees the souls of the ghost children. The Other World door is locked and the key is thrown down the old well, meaning the Beldam won't be able to prey on anyone else. Finally, her parents also complete their project, meaning they are able to spend a lot more time with her.
- Either/Or Prophecy: Played with both times Coraline visits Miss Spink and Miss Forcible and they give her supernatural advice. With each visit, they present conflicting pronouncements about Coraline's situation, and each time one of them makes a significant claim...yet the other also gives a valid, if less pertinent answer:
- When reading the tea leaves, Miss Spink sees a "very peculiar hand" crawling around, and indeed, peculiar hands are a feature of the Other Mother, and one of them detaches and causes problems for Coraline later. Miss Forcible sees a giraffe, which is less relevant, to be sure, but one of the toys in the Other bedroom is part-giraffe.
- When giving Coraline the adder stone, Miss Spink says it's for "bad things", and Miss Forcible says it's for "lost things". Forcible is closer, as it is able to highlight the hidden ghost eyes when looked through, but by that point, the entire situation is "bad things", so Spink isn't entirely wrong.
- The End... Or Is It?: Done very subtly with the last shots of the movie. As the camera pans out on the garden, the way it's planted makes it look like the Other Mother's face, like the Other Garden resembled Coraline, and the Cat is seen vanishing into the Other World again.
- Evil-Detecting Dog: Several animals around the Pink Palace know for a fact that whatever's behind the small bricked-up door is pure evil and ought to be avoided at all costs. The Cat is the most prominent example being that he follows Coraline into the Other World and outright says Coraline is wrong to think this world is a dream come true and he tries to talk her out of going back, only relenting when she says she has to save her parents and gives her tips on beating the Other Mother.
- The other (albeit unseen) example is Mr. Bobinski's circus mice. They tell Bobinski to warn Coraline about the door, even calling her by her correct name, something Bobinski never does.
- Exact Words: The Other Mother offers Coraline a chance to stay in the Other World forever. We see three children who were given that chance before. They are ghosts now, having been killed by the Other Mother and gotten stuck haunting the Other World for seeming eternity.
- Eye Scream:
- "Black is traditional... But if you'd prefer pink... or vermilion... or chartreuse... Though you might make me jealous!" The fact that there's a needle next to the buttons makes it that much worse.The Other Father: So sharp you won't feel a thing.
- Ironically, the Other Mother herself loses her button eyes, blinding her.
- "Black is traditional... But if you'd prefer pink... or vermilion... or chartreuse... Though you might make me jealous!" The fact that there's a needle next to the buttons makes it that much worse.
- Facial Horror: While button eyes are traditionally a more quirky or off-beat style for a doll, they're exploited for horror here, as they're the symbol of the Other Mother's control, and the process of getting the eyes is treated as horrific in-universe.
- False Utopia: The Other World looks like an idealized, magical copy of the real world, where you'll be spoiled with endless enjoyment and attention, and anything you dream of can come true...but to stay forever, you must have buttons sewn into your eyes, and you will be devoured and forgotten by the being calling herself your "other mother".
- Fan Disservice:
- The beginning half of the Other Spink and Forcible's stage play... ugh. Both of the old women are practically naked, with only their nipples and crotch covered up. No amount of Brain Bleach will ever clear that out of your mind.
- Also, when the Other Mother transforms, her shirt becomes very low-cut, but since she's so hideous and emaciated with her ribs exposed, it's not all that attractive.
- Fanservice: When the Other Miss Spink and Miss Forcible transform into their younger selves, they are young, skinny attractive women doing a trapeze act.
- Finger-Forced Smile: Inverted; during one of Coraline's later visits to the Other World, the Other Father uses his fingers to pull the corners of his mouth into a deep frown when talking about how Other Wybie incurred the Other Mother's wrath by refusing to smile.
- Fire-Forged Friends: Coraline and Wybie bond by fighting off the Other Mother's detached but still animate hand.
- Fisher King: During Coraline's first visit to the Other World, the Other Mother suggests having fun playing in the rain; when Coraline points out that there's no rain to speak of, lightning flashes in the next instant and suddenly it's pouring like a hastily edited-in detail. The Other Mother is later established to be the Domain Holder of the Other World; during Coraline's second visit, the Other Father surreptitiously suggests that the Other Mother is giving energy to the world as well as shape β "Her strength is our strength." β but the piano shushes him before he can go on.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: Moments before the Other Bobinsky is revealed to have been reduced to a swarm of rats, the rats can be seen crawling under his costume.
- Follow the White Rabbit: Coraline discovers the hidden tunnel to the Other World by following a whimsical jumping mouse from her bedroom to the living room below.
- Food Porn: The dinner/breakfast/food scenes in the Other World, despite the fact that the foods are fake, are mouthwatering. It's all part of the Other Mother's temptations, of course...
- Foreign Sounding Gibberish: The general consensus as to exactly what the vocals in choral numbers like Explorationπ Image
, Mechanical Lullabyπ Image
, and of course the end credits songπ Image
mean.- Closed captions just call it "child/children singing nonsense words".
- Foreshadowing: The movie is saturated with omens of things to come for is own page.
- Foul Flower: The snapdragons in the Other World's garden attempt to pull Coraline into a well, but she escapes using her garden trimmers.
- Friendly Tickle Torture: About halfway into the movie, when Coraline enters the garden made by the Other Mother, she gets playfully "attacked" by a bunch of living Snapdragons that get beheaded shortly after by the Other Father.
- Game Face: The Other Mother lets her disguise as Coraline's real mother slip when Coraline resists her, likely giving up the facade because she realizes it won't work anymore.
- Garden of Evil: The previously magical garden in the Other World quickly turns hostile when Coraline goes there to find the ghost children's eyes.
- Gift for an Outgrown Interest: Wybie gives Coraline a doll that looks just like her that he found lying around. Coraline scoffs that she's "way too old for dolls", but she does eventually start playing with the doll. It turns out that the doll is being used for surveillance by the Other Mother.
- Gilligan Cut: When Coraline makes a fuss over her food at dinner, calling it "slime", Mr. Jones says it's "slime or bedtime". She continues to complain, and slouches in her chair in a huff...which transitions into her falling back onto her bed.
- Glamour Failure: The black button eyes, of course, but as Coraline continues to get to know the Other World, the harder it is for the Other Mother to hide her true nature. Eventually, the Other Mother reverts to a more monstrous form, and the inhabitants of the Other World begin to resemble what they were presumably made from: rats, mosquitoes, bats, taffy, and a pumpkin.
- Glasgow Smile: Played with. The Other Mother freezes Other Wybie's face into a perpetual smile when she takes away his voice, and later sews it into an even more hideous smile. The doll she uses as a spy on her intended victims is a straight example, as the mouth is slit open to remove the stuffing each time she remakes the doll.
- A Glitch in the Matrix: When Coraline ventures too far from the house in the Other World, the environment around her becomes increasingly sparse until she ends up in a disorienting White Void Room. The cat explains that the Other Mother only creates what captivates Coraline.
- Grin of Audacity: Coraline flashes a mischievous smirk when she devises the daring plan to challenge the Other Mother to a game, embodying her spirit of rebellion and cleverness in the face of danger.
- Hand Stomp: During the Post-Climax Confrontation, the Other Mother's severed hand tries to make Wybie fall into a deep hole by stomping on his hands. However, Coraline intervenes Just in Time.
- Harmful to Minors: Averted. Coraline gets over her initial shock at the Other Spink and Forcible's rather lewd play and begins to enjoy it.
- Hates Being Touched: The Other Mother won't keep her hands off Coraline, and Coraline is evidently uncomfortable with it.
- Heroic Sacrifice:
- The Other Father tosses the first child's soul to Coraline and fights the machine he's tethered to long enough for him to fall to his death and keep Coraline alive.
- The Other Wybie qualifies as well. He endures having a smile sewn into his face for defying the Other Mother's command to smile and still decides to help Coraline, rescuing her from the mirror and escorting her safely into the blocked passage back to the real world, knowing that the Other Mother will kill him for it.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: The Other Mother creates alternate versions of Coraline's father and neighbor Wybie to be friendly and supportive and care about her. This leads to them defying her and sacrificing their existence for Coraline's sake.
- Hope Spot: Coraline reluctantly goes back to the Other World to save her parents. She then sees her real mother peeking through the door, neck brace, buttonless eyes, and all. Coraline is so happy and relieved that she runs into her mother's arms. It turns out to be the Other Mother, who proceeds to confiscate the key to the Other Door after taking off her disguise happily.
- Hypocritical Humour: "I'm way too old for dolls". Cue her immediately playing with the doll all day and naming it "Little Me".
- I'm Dying, Please Take My MacGuffin: The Other Father as he passes Coraline the first ghost eye."Taaaaaake iiiiit..."
- Improvised Weapon: Our heroine takes down the villain with a live cat. By throwing it as hard as she can at her. Yikes.
- In Case You Forgot Who Wrote It: Inverted β it's been advertised as being "from Henry Selick, the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas", which most people associate with its producer, Tim Burton.
- This was actually a later addition, as early ads only billed it as "from the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas" most likely in the hopes that people who only know Nightmare as being a Tim Burton film would assume he directed it.
- In Place of an Eye: Inhabitants of the Other World sport eerie buttons for eyes, symbolizing their artificiality β except for the enigmatic black cat, who retains its natural gaze, hinting at its unique role in the story.
- Intergenerational Friendship: Coraline develops this with her adult neighbors at the Pink Palace Apartments.
- Ironic Echo: Coraline calls the black cat a "wuss puss" when Wybie introduces her to it. In the Other World, the Cat demonstrates that he's the same one from the real world and how smart he actually is by throwing the wuss-puss insult back at her.
- Irony: Even though Coraline's parents write gardening catalogues for a living, her mother hates dirt.
- It May Help You on Your Quest: The adder stone, courtesy of the Misses Spink. "They're good for bad things, sometimes... Anyway, it might help...". The adder stone is essential for Coraline to find the souls of the ghost children.
- Jacob Marley Warning: The three ghost children give this to Coraline when she meets them behind the mirror, telling her how their souls were devoured by the Other Mother.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Almost everyone in the real world, although they warm up after Coraline returns from the Other World for the final time.
- Jump Scare: There are a few.
- Coraline suddenly gets grabbed by the Other Spink and Forcible monster when she tries to take the second pair of ghost eyes.
- A milder one when Coraline is approaching the real-world Spink and Forcible's apartment and the dogs jump up suddenly, complete with their "infernal yapping."
- Know Your Vines: Coraline brushes some leaves off a stick and uses it as a water rod. She meets Wybie, and has a fairly long conversation with him, and at the end he throws in that the stick she's holding is poison oak. We even see a rash on her hands afterwards, which then becomes a plot point when, during what appears to be just a dream, the Other Mother puts some healing mud on the rash, and Coraline wakes up with a completely healed hand.
- Kooky Cascadia: While the original book was set in England, the film adaptation moves the setting to Oregon, which is depicted as foggy and full of strange people even before Coraline discovers a door to another world.
- Leitmotif:
- "Mechanical Lullaby" for the Other World in general. The Other Mother even hums it.
- Coraline has one in the form of "Exploration".
- Lighter and Softer: They actually toned down the creepiness from the book, believe it or not, yet some very different forms of new creepiness were added, so this may or may not be the case for any given viewer depending on what they find scary.
- Like Parent, Like Spouse: Notice how Coraline punches Wybie on the shoulder at the end. It's the same way Coraline's mom punched her dad's shoulder earlier. Let the shipping commence!
- Plus, both couples have similar personality traits. Coraline/Mel is a grumpy snarker, and Wybie/Charlie is a lighthearted goofball.
- Living Photo: Coraline keeps a photo of two of her friends from Michigan in her room. When she enters the "Other World", she finds that her "Other Bedroom" has a copy of that photo and that her friends in it can talk to her.
- Lock-and-Load Montage: There is a short one when Coraline prepares to enter the Other World to find her parents as she gathers her supplies and traveling clothes for the trip.
- MacGuffin: The eyes of the ghost children. In order to escape the Other World, Coraline makes a deal with the Other Mother to collect all three.
- Magic Mirror: The mirror over the prison room in the Other World is now a surface that can be passed through on the outside rather than a secret door on a hinge like in the book.
- Match Cut:
- The shot of Coraline leaning back in her chair to her falling into bed.
- In the final scene, the transition from the glowing night moon to a floating white balloon in the garden.
- Midword Rhyme:Coraline: Oh, my twitchy witchy girl/I think you are so nice/I give you bowls of porridge/I give you bowls of ice...cream.
- Mini-Me: The doll that Wybie gives Coraline early on looks a lot like her, which she nicknames "Little Me". It turns out that the Other Mother uses the doll's eyes to spy on Coraline, and she remakes the doll to look like each of her victims in turn.
- Mistaken for Drunk: The Jones family's upstairs neighbour Mr. Bobinski is a total eccentric, often doing stunts, calling Coraline "Caroline", and claiming his pet mice can talk. As such, Mrs. Jones initially thinks he's drunk when she first meets him.
- Mistaken for Insane:
- Zigzagged with Mr. Bobinski. He behaves very erratically, and multiple characters speculate as to why, with their hypotheses ranging from him being insane to him being always drunk. We never find out the truth, though Coraline eventually comes to believe he's simply eccentric.
- When Coraline tells Wybie about the Other Mother and the fact that the doll is being used to spy on her, Wybie doesn't believe her and thinks she's lost it.
- Mood Whiplash: The film is famous for transitioning from wondrous fantasy to horror at the halfway point when the true intentions of the Other Mother are revealed.
- Morton's Fork: According to the ghost children, the Beldam would never let Coraline go, even if she wins the game.
- Motifs: Buttons, spiders, and the Other Mother's hand are prominent imagery. Much more subtly is the mirror, which appears in a scene that marks the significant tonal and plot reversal halfway through the movie, and brings to mind the idea of reflections being familiar yet inaccurate, like the Other World itself.
- Muggle in Mage Custody: Coraline almost becomes a foster child of the Other Mother, who turns out to be an evil witch.
- Nasal Trauma: After losing her temper, the Other Mother grabs Coraline by the nose and drags her out of the room. For good measure, the Other Mother is in her true form and sporting extremely long, sharp fingers.
- Near-Miss Groin Attack: When Mr. Bobinsky jumps off his deck and almost lands on Coraline, his crotch comes within inches of the pair of garden trimmers she has in her hand.
- Never Trust a Trailer: Before the movie was released, many people thought that it looked too "cutesy", judging by the trailer. Oh, how wrong they were.
- Wybie's opening scene in the film is played out of context in the trailer as if he's a separate character and a threat to Coraline.
- Multiple scenes in the film are played out of context in the trailer to make it seem more horror-oriented, such as Wybie taking pictures with the banana slug.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain!:
- The Other Mother kills Other Wybie and punishes the Other Father into attacking Coraline, both of whom are the only residents who were genuinely kind to Coraline. On seeing both of their fates, Coraline swears vengeance on the witch and doesn't hold back when tossing the cat in her face.
- When Coraline begins her quest to find the ghost children's eyes, the Other Mother has insect minions try to steal the adder stone that Miss Spink and Miss Forcible gave her. Coraline fights them off and wonders why they were so determined to take it β and then she holds it up to her face and discovers that it can both see through the Other World's illusions and illuminate the glowing ghost eyes. Had the Other Mother not drawn attention to the stone in the first place, Coraline wouldn't have learned about its powers, and keep in mind that at that point, Coraline didn't even know what the eyes looked like.
- No Name Given: We don't know the names of Coraline's friends from Michigan, the Cat, Wybie's grandmother, or the three ghost children.
- Non-Malicious Monster: Of all the creatures in the Other World, only the Other Mother is actively malicious. The Other Father and the Other Wybie end up entering Love Redeems mode because they were made to love Coraline and be her friend respectively, while the Other Forcible, Spink, and Bobinski are barely sentient due to the fact that their only purpose was to entertain Coraline.
- Noodle Incident: Coraline's mother mentions a car accident as the reason the family moved. She's also wearing a neck brace throughout the film, also indicated to be a result of the accident.
- Noodle People:
- Coraline is as thin as a rod, but many other characters, like her father and Ms. Spink, are short and squat.
- Mr. Bobinsky is a borderline example β he's round and rotund, but with spidery legs.
- The Other Mother starts out looking like Coraline's mother, along with her legs. Gradually, she morphs and transforms throughout the story into a wizened, vaguely human creature with four spidery legs and arms made out of sewing needles.
- No Sense of Personal Space: One of Coraline's Other World toys says "I wanna hug your face!"
- Now You Tell Me?: While exploring, Coraline flips a switch, only to turn off the electricity to the computer room, destroying her father's work. She finds a sign a second later, telling the reader not to push.
- Object Ceiling Cling: The candy bowl at Ms. Spink and Ms. Forcible's apartment. When Coraline tries to extract a piece of candy, it won't budge, so she tugs harder and harder until it flies out of her hands and sticks to a vent. It comes crashing down later towards the end of the scene.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome:
- When it's revealed that Wybie's grandmother kept the doll for about fifty years after her sister died, which meant she kept it from spying on other potential child victims. She also refused to rent out apartments in the Pink Palace, where the entrance to the Other World is, to tenants with children. She manages to protect her grandson in this fashion as well, so that by the time Coraline's family moves in, the Other Mother is starving and Coraline is her last hope.
- From a purely visual sense, the Other Mother's second transformation, which was probably too hard to transition even conceptually, let alone on screen with stop-motion.
- Oh, Crap!:
- "Black is traditional."
- When the Other World starts to collapse, the Cat looks genuinely terrified for the first time.
- Ominous Latin Chanting: More like ominous gibberish chanting. Most notable during the end credits.
- Ominous Music Box Tune: When Coraline visits the Other Spink and Forcible's theatre the second time, one of these is playing.
- Orphean Rescue: The final act of the film becomes this, with Coraline going into the Other World to rescue her parents and the three ghost children.
- Our Sirens Are Different: The Bawdy Song Other Miss Spink and Other Miss Forcible sing while dressed as sirens and the Birth of Venus painting.
- Paddleball Shot: Quite a few shots are made specifically to take advantage of 3D effects β for instance, the shot of the paper mice coming out of the brick wall, and the hands coming out of the piano.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: Deconstructed. While the Other Mother looks like a doppelganger of Coraline's mother, it's shown that it's not her real form, and Coraline can tell the difference between the two. The uncanny resemblance creeps her out at first, including the button eyes. Eventually, she realizes that the Other Mother can't create anew, only copy what's real, and the disguise falls into that. One subversion is when she poses as Coraline's mother to lure her into a trap, hiding her button eyes and wearing a neck brace like her real mother has.
- Parallel Porn Titles: The posters of Miss Spink and Miss Forcible when they were young burlesque/trapeze acts. Featuring titles borrowed from Shakespeare works. Such examples as "Julius Sees-Her!" and "King Leer!" with an old man ogling them in the background.
- Parental Bonus: When we first meet Spink and Forcible, we find out by way of all of the posters that they are ex-burlesque dancers. Kids may not get it, but parents or grandparents might think, "How did that get there?"
- Parents as People: Coraline's parents mean well, but they just don't have enough time for her at the moment.
- Parents in Distress: Coraline's parents are kidnapped by the Other Mother, and she has to return to the Other World one last time and challenge the Other Mother in order to save them.
- Pictorial Letter Substitution: The film's title in the poster has the letter O replaced by a button and the L is replaced by light coming out of a doorway covered by a cat sticking out its tail.
- Pink Is Erotic: Miss Spink and Miss Forcible are a pair of retired burlesque actresses who live in The Pink Palace. When Coraline visits them, their posters have them colored pink as they starred in films like "Julius sees-her" and "King Leer", which are obviously themed around voyeurism. Miss Spink also has her hair dyed pink and the posters make it very clear that they were sex symbols in their prime.
- Please, Don't Leave Me: As Coraline is desperately crawling through the portal to get back home after blinding the Other Mother, the Other Mother begins frantically pounding on the door and screams and pleads with Coraline not to go. It's a more selfish example than usual, given why she needs Coraline to stay.Other Mother: DON'T LEAVE ME! DON'T LEAVE ME! I'LL DIE WITHOUT YOU!
- Pop-Star Composer: Almost. They Might Be Giants did write songs for the movie, but they ended up not fitting for the most part, and almost all got π This example contains a TRIVIA entry. It should be moved to the TRIVIA tab.
cut. - Post-Climax Confrontation: Much like in the original novel, after Coraline successfully escapes from the Other Mother and her custom dimension, her severed hand returns one final time in a last-ditch effort to reclaim the key that'll then allow the Other Mother herself to enter the normal world, only for the former to subsequently forever trap it right underneath of a large boulder within a deep hole.
- Powered by a Forsaken Child: To sustain her life, the Beldam must consume all the love out of a child's soul after sewing buttons over their eyes. The various zones of the Other World and their assigned guardians also seem to be this, as, after Coraline takes back the stolen eyes, the areas and their guardians freeze and become completely grayed out. When all of the eyes are taken back, they collapse further, and the only zone and guardian left existing are the Other Mother and the Other Pink Palace.
- Power Trio: Coraline, Wybie, and the Cat form one.
- Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: The Other Mother holds up a button and thread and snarls "Now you're going to stay here forever," to which Coraline shouts "No, I'm not!" and throws the Cat at the Other Mother.
- Proof of Commitment: To stay in the Other World forever with all its delights and wonders, Coraline has to let the Other Mother remove her eyes and sew buttons onto the sockets. When the three ghost children were alive, they took up the offer, which allowed the Other Mother to suck out their souls.Other Mother: Black is traditional. But if you'd prefer pink, or vermilion, or chartreuse...well, you might make me jealous!Coraline: (shoves the gift box away) No WAY! You're not sewing buttons in my eyes!Other Mother: Oh, but we need a yes. If you want to stay here.Other Father: (holds up the sewing needle) So sharp, you won't feel a thing... (the Other Mother kicks him) Ow!
- Protagonist Title: The movie (like the book) is named after its protagonist.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: "You. Aren't. My. Mother."
- Rage Against the Reflection: She breaks a mirror when she sees a vision of her captive parents inside.
- Raincoat of Horror: One of Coraline's iconic outfits from this horror fairy tale film is a yellow raincoat. It's also the outfit the Other Mother makes to dress the doll version of Coraline.
- Rapid-Fire "No!": Coraline's father yells "No!" several times when Coraline accidentally shuts off the power to the house while he's working on the computer.
- Reading Tea Leaves: Miss Spink and Miss Forcible read Coraline's fortune when she comes to visit them. Miss Spink thinks that she is in terrible danger (seeing a "most peculiar hand"), while Miss Forcible thinks there is a "tall, handsome beast" in her future (seeing a giraffe).
- Real Is Brown: The colors of the real world are incredibly dull and jaded to contrast the Other World's vibrant and cheery colors.
- Retraux: The entire movie, from the clothing to the hairstyles to the gigantic, baby-crushing CRT monitor on Coraline's dad's computer, is steeped in The '90s, which is strange since the original book came out in 2002.
- May cause a bit of Anachronism Stew; Coraline's mom has a flip-phone that looks more like it's from the early 2000s.
- Rule of Symbolism: While Coraline is burning the doll, the fireplace holds a roaring fire. But as the scene turns quiet, the flames die down, signifying that all of Coraline's anger is spent. Also, near the end, after Coraline and Wybie defeat the Other Mother's hand in the real world, the full moon is shown being uncovered by two clouds that resemble clawed hands, signifying the end of the Other Mother's threat.
- Rule of Three:
- Coraline goes to the other world several times, and it is on her third trip that the Other Mother's full intentions are revealed.
- She also has to collect the three missing eyes of the ghost children and face three challenges to do so.
- "One... two... '''''THREEEEE!'''''".
- Spink and Forcible have three live dogs, and their stuffed dogs are in rows of three.
- There are three wonders in the Other World, and three "acts" guarding them. The Other Father tends and defends the garden, the Other Bobinsky is in charge of the mouse circus, and the interchangeable team of the Other Spink and Forcible perform in the theater.
- Running Gag:
- Early in the film, Coraline points out whenever something in the Other World doesn't match something in the real world, most notably that "my mom doesn't have buttons."
- Throughout the movie, characters mistakenly refer to Coraline as "Caroline".
- Russian Reversal: "This piano plays me."
- Scenery Gorn: The scenes of the Other World disappearing, erasing all that beautiful miniature work into flat greys and eventually nothing at all.
- Scenery Porn: Like you wouldn't believe. The garden, the mouse circus, and the theater in the Other World are breathtaking.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here!: The second Coraline learns the conditions for staying in the Other World, she tries to leave with no hesitation. Unfortunately, she isn't allowed.
- Seashell Bra: The Other Forcible wears shells while dressed as Venus...but they're more like pasties than a bra.
- Secret Room: Subverted. Coraline finds the outlines of a little door behind a box in the living room, but she cannot open it because it's covered up by wallpaper. Then her mum rips the wallpaper open, but the door turns out to be a Real Fake Door, as it's all bricked up behind it, making the door impossible to actually use. The Other World can be accessed through the door, but it uses a portal to do so.
- Ship Tease: The interactions between Wybie and Coraline is seen by π This example contains a YMMV entry. It should be moved to the YMMV tab.
the fans as a burgeoning romance. He's always trying to hang around her, and Coraline refers to this behavior as "stalking." She also punches him playfully in the arm the way her mother punches her father earlier in the film. - Shoe Slap: Coraline gets mad at Wybie at one point and throws the heeled boots the Other Mother made for her at him while chasing after him in the rain. (In the commentary, the filmmakers note that this would have very different connotations in the Middle East, where throwing shoes is a far graver insult.)
- Shout-Out:
- To The Nightmare Before Christmas: the pumpkins in the other mother's garden look like the Mayor of Halloweentown, and the tallest of the three ghost children resembles Shock. The cat is the same sort of black, scrawny specimen seen in Halloween Town, and when the Other Mother cracks an egg, the falling yolk is shaped like Jack Skellington's face. Similarly, when Wybie has his facemask/helmet on, he bears a strong resemblance to Barrel.
- To Pixar: one of the Shakespeare players has a baby in a backpack that looks a lot like Jack-Jack.
- The movers at the beginning are the "Ranft Bros.", caricatured after Jerome Ranft and the late Joe Ranft, who worked on The Nightmare Before Christmas and several Pixar films.
- The Other Father's slippers look an awful lot like Monkeybone...
- Not surprising. He has his own line of slippers as part of his cartoon show's marketing gimmick.
- The piano in the Other study has the gold word "Tadahiro" on it. Tadahiro Uesugi was a concept artist whom Henry Selick adored and who worked on the film.
- Wybie shares the same last name as a runaway Black child named Jessie Lovat in American Gods, though the surname is also mentioned in the book version of Coraline.
- Much of the Other Father's creepy dialogue when the Other Mother isn't around seems similar to Psycho.
- To Shakespeare: quite a lot. One poster in the old ladies' apartment reads "King Leer". The boy in the uniforms store yells "My kingdom for a horse!". Several lines from Hamlet are quoted during the theater scene. To top it off, Oregon natives will recognize the city the titular character's family moves to as Ashland, Oregon, where the Shakespeare Festival is held annually. A banner for the festival is visible in one scene.
- "What a piece of work is a man; how noble in reason; how infinite in faculty, in form and moving how express and admirable in action; how like an angel in apprehension; how like a god." Done awesomely, especially since they're saying it sarcastically, though Coraline and unfamiliar viewers wouldn't know it at the time.
- An old witch entices children into her home with treats in order to eat them up herself, and eventually gets killed by one of her could-have-been victims, who's also female. Sounds familiar?
- Coraline describes to Wybie that the three ghost children look like a "pioneer girl", a "Little Rascals chick", and "Huck Finn, Jr."
- Once Coraline has made it home and gotten her parents back, she has a dream of the ghost children. In that dream the background is the famous The Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh.
- Toward the end of the movie, Coraline's father playfully pretends to be attacked by a plush octopus, mimicking the iconic Face Hugger from the Alien franchise.
- Shut Up, Hannibal!: When the Other Mother plans to trap Coraline in the other world with her forever:The Other Mother: You're wrong, Coraline. They aren't there. Now.... you're going to stay here forever.Coraline Jones: No...I'm...NOT! (grabs the cat and throws it at the Other Mother)
- Sirens Are Mermaids: During the Other Spink and Forcible's song, the Other Spink describes herself as "the siren of all seven seas" while dressed as a mermaid.
- Slaying Mantis: The Other Mother makes the Other Father's mantis vehicle into one in the third act, using the piano hands to control him. It's fitting symbolism, given that female mantises kill their mates.
- Small Taxonomy Pools: It's implied that the Other World's dogs are actually bats, as they grow bat wings and hang from the ceiling with their wings wrapped around their bodies once the Other World begins to unravel. However, only flying foxes sleep with their wings wrapped around their bodies, and they're not native to any part of the United States, so the movie creators likely assumed all bats slept in the same way.
- Snark-to-Snark Combat: Some conversations between Coraline and the cat are this, given that the two are the biggest snarkers in the film.
- Snow Globe of Innocence: Coraline has a souvenir snow globe of the Detroit Zoo that her parents become stuck in. Much of the film is about her wanting to go back to a time before the accident when her family was happier, with the subsequent separation from her parents making her more appreciative of them.
- Something Only They Would Say: Sort of. When Coraline and the cat first have a conversation, Coraline is initially skeptical that the cat is the same one from the real world (as opposed to a copy in the Other World). The cat quickly puts an end to the skepticism with a casual Call-Back to an earlier scene where Coraline refers to the cat as a "wuss puss."
- Spanner in the Works: Wybie's grandmother, whose twin sister disappeared without a trace when they were both very young, kept the doll resembling her as a Tragic Keepsake, and also point blank refused to rent apartments in the Pink Palace to families with children. This deprived the Other Mother of her prey and of a way to find suitable victims; if Coraline's family hadn't rented their apartment, the Other Mother might well have starved to death.
- Spiritual Antithesis: To Beetlejuice, as the movies share similar design aesthetics, characters, and situations, but the horror in Coraline is played straight while Beetlejuice is all comedic.
- Stab the Salad: In a tense moment, Miss Spink seemingly attacks Coraline with two large crochet needles, accompanied by ominous "Psycho" Strings on the soundtrack. However, it is revealed that she is using the needles to grind down 100-year-old candy into an adder stone.
- Stepford Smiler: The Other Mother, and most of the denizens of her realm. When one of her creations won't smile, the Other Mother stitches their mouth open so they have no choice.
- The Stinger: After the credits, some behind-the-scenes footage is shown of how the floating paper mice coming out of the tunnel was animated.
- Stop Motion: The entire film is shot in stop motion, using puppets and some CGI animation.
- Summoned by Sobbing: After failing to find the third stone in time, Coraline sits sobbing on the grass. Cue the cat appearing with the third stone he apparently snatched from the rats.
- Surprisingly Bad Native Language:
- Bobinsky's native Russian isn't at the best level.
- Most glaringly, he calls mice "mooshkas", which, apart from being a weird sort of accent (putting a Russian noun in an English plural form), is the wrong word: "mooshka" means "little fly", while the word for "little mouse" is "myshka"; the correct Russian plural would be "myshki".
- "Sergei Alexander Bobinsky", as he introduces himself later, completely messes up Russian Naming Convention. However, this case might be justified, since it's not the real Bobinsky speaking but the otherworldly rats posing as him.
- Survival Mantra: Once Coraline barricades herself in her room, she hops under the covers and says to herself, "Go to sleep," over and over again.
- Swallow the Key: Done by the Other Mother to prevent Coraline from escaping her clutches again, as opposed to the book where she simply puts it in her apron pocket.
- Taxidermy Terror: Coraline is terrified by Miss Spink's collection of stuffed dogs in her apartment, adding to the eerie atmosphere.
- Terrified Transformation Witness: When the Other Mother finally reveals her true colours to Coraline in her refusal to let her leave the Other World, she begins to revert to her true form, growing taller, skinnier, and progressively more monstrous, to the point that she no longer resembles a human being anymore. Coraline, who was defiantly arguing with her a moment ago, immediately looks scared and begins edging away from her.
- They Wasted a Perfectly Good Sandwich: Coraline never finishes a single meal throughout the entire movie. When the first meal gets replaced by cake, she doesn't eat that either. And she tosses away a bag of popcorn in the Other Mouse Circus.
- This Was His True Form: When the cat delivers a killing bite to one of the Other Bobinsky's circus mice, it turns into a rat. As the Other World deteriorates, we get to see what each of its denizens come from.
- Tickle Torture: Coraline suffers this at the hands of some plants in the Other Father's garden, although since the tone at the time is still lighthearted and fantasy-esque, it's more Friendly Tickle Torture.
- Tragic Keepsake: Wybie's grandmother kept the doll because it was an accurate facsimile of her twin sister, and the only clue as to what happened to her. Unfortunately, Coraline realizes the doll is a spy for the Other Mother and burns it when the Other Mother sends it back in the image of her parents.
- Trailers Always Spoil:
- One TV spot for the film shows the Other Mother giving Coraline the gift box with the buttons meant for her. Another TV spot has the Other Father being held up by the evil mantis thing and swiping at Coraline, and shows the Other Wybie's stitched smile. A third features Other Bobinski's rat-clothes slithering around.
- Although spoilers were to be expected when the HBO Special on Coraline aired, some of them were a bit too big, mainly the fact that the Other Wybie dies and has all that's left of him, his clothes, hung like a flag. Granted, one of the five Behind the Scenes videos hinted at the possibility of this, but no one expected what actually occurred. It kinda reduced the shock value.
- The Other Mother's second form is on the back of the DVD box. The spoiler status of this is arguable though, as that's how she's described in the book from the beginning, as opposed to starting out as identical to Coraline's real mother.
- Trap Is the Only Option: Despite the cat's warning that she is walking into the Other Mother's trap, Coraline resolutely re-enters the Other World to save her parents, acknowledging the risk but determined to face it.
- Trip Trap: When Coraline tries to escape from Mr. Bobinsky's flat, two rats create a trap by forming a rope with their tails, causing Coraline to trip and fall.
- True Sight: By peering through the adder stone, Coraline gains the ability to see the missing stones hidden by the Other Mother's Glamour.
- Viewers Are Geniuses:
- Not many viewers will know why the ghost children call the other mother "the beldam", and will probably figure it was the name for whatever monster she was. Fortunately we have John Keats and The Other Wiki.
- The fairy ring of mushrooms around the abandoned well is a huge Chekhov's Gun to anyone who knows the appropriate folklore; to everyone else it's just added scenery.
- The stone that Spink and Forcible give Coraline? It's an adder stoneπ Image
. - Also, how many viewers recognize the speech the Other Spink and Forcible recite during their trapeze act? It's from Hamlet. It has especially interesting plot correlations when you recall that when he originally spoke it in the play, Hamlet was being sarcastic.
- Especially when you also notice that they stop right before "And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me."
- It's just a passing gag, but how many people are going to get "My kingdom for a horse!"
- Villainous Breakdown: The Other Mother's Glamour Failure happens gradually throughout the whole film, but she completely loses it when Coraline sees through her tricks and gets the cat to claw out the Other Mother's eyes, complete with a heaping helping of hypocrisy.The Other Mother: You horrible, cheating girl!
- Voicemail Confusion: When Coraline realizes she can't find her parents, she anxiously calls her father from the flip-phone in the car. As she hears his voice on the other end, her hope rises, only to plummet in disappointment when she realizes it's just his voicemail.
- Voice of the Legion: For most of his last scene, the Other Bobinsky speaks with his normal voice, but for a single, horror-filled line, he uses this trope to great effect.
- Weird Moon: As time passes during Coraline's hunting game against the Other Mother, the moon is steadily eclipsed, and the shadow has an inner circumferential line and four holes (i.e., the shadow of a button). Coraline seems to take it as a time limit; at one moment the shadow notably (and audibly at that) grinds to a halt when the final ghost child's eye/soul is won.
- Wham Line:
- "Or maybe...she'd just love something to eat."
- The entirety of the ghost children's story shows the Beldam's true nature, but this line in particular:
"She said that she loved us...but she locked us in here...and ate up our lives..."- "You're just a copy she made of the real Mr. B..." "Not even that...anymore..."
- When Coraline is conditioned to stay in the other world:
The Other Mother: You know, you could stay forever, if you want to. There's one tiny thing we have to do first...The Other Father: So sharp you won't feel a thing... - Wham Shot:
- The first appearance of the Other Mother...turning around to reveal that she has buttons for eyes.
- The scene where Coraline opens the box that will allow her to live with her Other Parents forever...and sees the buttons. It's then that it dawns on her what exactly the Other Mother wants her to do...
- The Other Mother's transformation as she counts to three in response to Coraline's defiance.
- Three of them during the trials Coraline has to go through to get the ghost eyes β the Other Father appearing forcibly strapped to his mantis tractor, the Other Spink and Forcible bursting out of the candy wrapper made of taffy and fused together, and a rat appearing inside the Other Mr. B's empty suit.
- You Have to Believe Me!: Coraline telling Wybie her tale of terror would probably have gone better if she'd explained it to him coherently; throwing shoes at him isn't going to make him believe her. In fairness to her, however, she just narrowly avoided having her eyes poked out by a demonic copy of her mother. Coherency is optional after that.
- You're Not My Mother: Coraline boldly confronts the Other Mother, declaring that she is not her true mother. When the Other Mother demands an apology on the count of three, Coraline's refusal triggers her transformation into a monstrous One-Winged Angel.
- Your Heart's Desire: The Beldam preys on children by constructing a Pocket Dimension full of all their wildest dreams, complete with idealized versions of their families and neighbours. The Beldam herself is the pièce de résistance of the whole illusion, disguising her hideous true form by pretending to be the victim's "Other Mother". Once she has the child in her grasp, she offers to let them stay forever in exchange for letting her sew her trademark black buttons into their eyes. Those who accept the deal are eaten, and they have their souls taken by the Beldam for good measure.
