YMMV / Coraline

All Works

• Accidental Aesop: If you find an area in a building that's been blocked off, don't try to explore it further. It was probably blocked off for a good reason.
• Complete Monster: The Beldam, or the "Other Mother", is a sinister temptress who lures children to her otherworldly lair under the promise of a better life. The Beldam spoils them with a world tailored to their fondest wishes in order to keep them with her, before convincing them to sew buttons on their eyes to stay in her realm forever. After this, the Beldam murders them and locks away their souls to replenish her own energy. Intending on making the eponymous heroine her fourth victim, the Beldam kidnaps Coraline's parents to force her into a horrifying game of finding the dead children's eyes. The Beldam also turns her own servants into hollow monstrosities to sic them on Coraline, or for their defiance. In the film adaptation, she murders a boy she had styled after Coraline's friend Wybie, then hangs up his clothes as a macabre taunt to her.
• Paranoia Fuel:
  • Be afraid of buttons. Be very afraid.
  • One of the quotes from reviews on the back cover of the book says, "You'll never look at buttons the same way again." The quote is from Terry Pratchett.
• Realism-Induced Horror:
  • Kids find the Other Mother/Beldam scary because she is a child-eating Humanoid Abomination with a terrifying transformation and a Nightmare Face. Adults find her scary because she is an accurate portrayal of an Abusive Parent who showers her "children" with shallow affection only to turn into a nightmare when they dissatisfy her and sees them as tools for her own satisfaction. Quite a few posters on r/raisedbynarcissists have expressed how much she reminds them of their own mothers.
  • Alternatively, adults find her scary because she is a surprisingly realistic example of the type who would kidnap a child by appealing to them with toys or candy rather than using brute force.

Book Examples

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • The Other Mother. Some say her only desire is to eat children's lives; others say she's a Woobie who truly wants to love and be loved but just can't control her hunger.
  • Alternately, she might not see the difference between loving children and eating their lives, just like how she doesn't see the difference between loving someone enough to know what's genuinely best for them, or giving them everything they want.
  • Is the Other Mother's first transformation an intimidation tactic or her giving up on trying to look nice? Or is her starvation taking the ability to disguise herself away from her, and she's losing control of her form? The second transformation, being offscreen and without theatrics, would indicate so, but it's not entirely clear.
• And You Thought It Would Fail: Neil Gaiman started writing Coraline in 1991, until his publisher told him it was brilliant but that horror aimed at young children simply wasn't publishable^note Spooky Kids Media like Goosebumps, Bone Chillers, Ghosts of Fear Street and Graveyard School didn't take off until later in the decade; it wasn't until 2002 that it was published and proved popular, getting a graphic novel adaptation and an animated adaptation.
  Gaiman: And before people start laughing at him, in 1991 he was absolutely right.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The audiobook version has a weird song sung in the middle of chapter 5. It's related to the plot of the story, but comes out of nowhere, is the only one, and is never touched upon again.
• Genius Bonus: The Other Mother is most likely one of The Fair Folk of British folklore, who were said to kidnap and sometimes devour children. The portal between worlds looking like a little door is one of many such fairy world gateways, and the stone with a hole in it is most likely an adder stone, said to help see through fairies' or witches' illusions. The mushrooms surrounding the old well is a fairy ring, where not-so-good things happen to those who step in it, so Coraline using it to trap the hand is a very smart move on her part. Finally, one of the dead children being revealed to have butterfly wings and a love of eating flowers suggests that the Other Mother doesn't just hunt human children.
• Iron Woobie: Coraline. Unlike her movie counterpart, she never whines and always tries to keep a decent attitude despite the things she goes through.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: It's full of distinctly Freudian terror, but the true creepiness of the book isn't always apparent to kids, who might see it as just a book about scary monsters.

Movie Examples

• Adaptation Displacement: For anyone who grew up in the 2000s, they definitely knew about the movie before the book, as it's more kid-appealing than the latter.
• Adorkable: Wybie stutters a lot, is friends with a cat, and is a general Nice Guy.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Wybie's grandma doesn't rent to families with children — is this because most of the residents of the Pink Palace are old, and thus Coraline was the exception due to being a preteen who wouldn't be loud and bother the seniors? Or is it because she knows the Pink Palace is dangerous to kids due to her missing sister and initially didn't realise Coraline existed?
  • The cat disappears into thin air at one point, and it's implied he was around when the ghost children were alive — does that mean he's a magical cat, or a different sort of magical creature disguised as a cat? Or is it that in this universe, all Cats Are Magic, since the Other Mother is said to hate all cats? Then again, the Other Mother has scratches on her face, so maybe all of them were from cats.
  • Was the Other Bobinsky made out of rats the same way the Other Father was made out of a pumpkin, and turned back into rats as the Other Mother started to starve, or did the rats eat him?
• Awesome Art: This film was definitely worth paying the extra cash to watch in 3D, which is put to good use, especially the depth comparison between the real world and the Other World.
• Awesome Music: Bruno Coulais' score for the movie is stunning, particularly the opening theme, Dreaming, which really does evoke a sense of the world through the eyes of a child. Much like the below-mentioned Exploration, its use of Foreign Sounding Gibberish works wonders to capture the magic of the film.
  • Exploration is a song that is, simply put, magical. The calming instrumentation accompanied with a lovely voice speaking in Foreign Sounding Gibberish manages to be majestic... if a little unnerving, to some.
  • The "Other Father Song" is very catchy as well. It's also nice to see the kind Other Father get a song dedicated to him.
  • "Sirens of the Seas" has a beat and flow that complement the voice of the singer well.
  • "Careful What You Pack", a song composed by They Might Be Giants that ultimately went unused in the movie, is a nice, calming melody with a good beat.
• Base-Breaking Character: Wybie. Some of Coraline's Character Development is changed or removed completely in order to focus on him. Most notably, he comes to Coraline's rescue at the last minute in the ending; in the book, Coraline doesn't need saving, because she was setting a trap the entire time. Others, however, including Neil Gaiman, find that he's a necessary character in order to make the narrative more fluid and to give Coraline someone to talk to, though Gaiman also disagreed with Wybie saving Coraline.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • MY KINGDOM-M-M-M-M FOR A HORSE!!! (cue things falling over)
  • Just before the climax we're treated to a single line of dialogue from Coraline's thoughts, which never happens at any other point in the film. What's weirder is that the line is completely throwaway and doesn't add anything in the way of characterization or exposition.
• Broken Base: Coraline herself is a well-liked character, but her treatment of Wybie falls here. Some people don’t seem to mind it, since she gets better and Kids Are Cruel, after all, but there’s also a lot of people who dislike her treatment of him, since there isn’t really a reason for it and she goes as far as making a joke about his name, calling him “Why-were-you-born” instead of Wyborne. For these people, it's just way too harsh, and Wybie is much sweeter to her than she is to him. Doesn’t stop people shipping them, though.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • The Other Wybie is insanely popular among the fanbase, making up for not appearing in the book by being one of the most complex and sympathetic characters in the movie. Even people who don't like Wybie's inclusion tend to think that it's worth it for bringing the Other Wybie into the picture.
  • Likewise, the Other Father has received a disproportionate amount of attention compared to his screentime, since he's largely secondary to the Other Mother; like the Other Wybie, his actions and dialogue in the film (including in his short song for Coraline — provided by John Linnell of They Might Be Giants, giving yet another reason to like him) have enough hidden nuance to them to prompt entire video essays scrutinizing him in more depth.
• Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: More like "Everyone is Lenin in Russia", according to this article.
• Fandom-Enraging Misconception: If you value your life, never call this movie a "Tim Burton movie" in front of any fan. Burton had zero involvement in it; Henry Selick directed it. The confusion likely comes from the advertisements saying it was directed by the same person as The Nightmare Before Christmas, which Burton wrote and produced, but didn't direct, as is a common misconception about that movie.
• Fanfic Fuel: While it's completely understandable that Coraline doesn't let Wybie enter Otherworld, it's still interesting to imagine what would've happened if she did. What would the Beldam do to manipulate him into staying? What would've happened if he ran into his Other counterpart?
• Friendly Fandoms: One has sprung up between this movie and Gravity Falls, ParaNorman, and Psychonauts. The four together make up a group dubbed the "Mystery Kids". There's also some overlap with The Thief of Always.
• Genius Bonus:
  • The Amazing Bobinsky wears a Liquidator's Medal on his chest, which was given to the clean-up crew of the Chernobyl Disaster. This turns his baldness and odd color scheme from a funny quirk to a Dark and Troubled Past.
  • A subtle and brilliant case of Foreshadowing can be found in the calligraphy on the cake Coraline is first given when she comes into the Other World. In graphology, an "o" with one loop shows the writer is telling the truth, whereas an "o" with a double loop through it shows the writer is telling a lie. The cake says "Welcome Home." However, the writing on the cake shows that while Coraline is "welcome" (one loop in the "o") in the Other World, she is not "home" (double loop in the "o") and the place is actually far more dangerous than it may appear at first glance.
  • Going with the book's implication that the Other Mother is a member of The Fair Folk, her ability to transform things into something else (rats into mice, a pumpkin into the Other Father) is very similar to the glamours that faeries use to lure humans, like gold turning to junk outside the faerie realm. Leaving a doll behind when she takes a human also calls to mind faeries leaving an inanimate object behind in place of the abductee, especially since said object also resembles the person stolen.
  • The Beldam, in her spider form and blinded by the Cat scratching out her button eyes, catches Coraline trying to escape her web by feeling the vibrations that her movements make. This is actually how real spiders are alerted that something has been caught in their web.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In both the book and the movie, Coraline is mistakenly called "Caroline", much to her irritation. Years later, the movie would get a belated mockbuster called Caroline and the Magic Potion. ^note Caroline might not have originally been an intentional knockoff, as it was originally in Spanish and had a completely different title, but at very least the packaging of the English dub emphasizes that the main character looks like a Coraline Expy.
  • Keith David would later play another talking cat that encounters a spider demon.
• Jerkass Woobie: Coraline. She's definitely justified in feeling neglected, but she really acts like a spoiled brat about it. The most glaring example would be how she gets into a huff over not getting a pair of gloves. The Woobie part comes out full force in the third act when her parents vanish and it's a while before she learns they were kidnapped.
• Les Yay: In the Other World, during the first theater performance, Coraline, excited to see Other Spink perform on stage, squeezes Other Wylbie's arm and happily declares, "She's practically naked!" It looks like she was longing to see this...
• Memetic Mutation:
  • ☻_☻
  • The official website has a section where you can add button eyes to pictures. Let your imagination run free...
  • The entirety of the "Black is traditional" quote has been paired up with videos of people changing their eye color with the help of a filter.
  • A still image of Coraline's father at his computer◊ has made the rounds on Twitter usually as a representation of exhausted moderators or other Internet dwellers. It's often paired with a similar still image◊ from The Incredibles.
    • In the same vein, there's a version◊ mixing the above meme with the "Are ya winnin' son?" meme, usually replacing his PC's screen with hard video game levels◊ or the other thing.
• Misaimed Merchandising:
  • During the TV broadcast of the movie, they aired an advertisement for a brand of dolls that have buttons for eyes. They also made real-life replicas of the "Little Me" doll, which would be a horrible gift to anyone scared of this film.
  • The film itself inspired the creation of glasses with button lenses. More insanely, they're advertised as perfect for a Coraline cosplay, even though the character herself most emphatically does not want buttons in her eyes.
• Moe: Coraline is oh so cute. Not even her mother can say no to those Puppy-Dog Eyes she uses in order to get her to find the key to the tiny door for her.
• Narm:
  • The scene where Coraline finds the first soul/eye, specifically the Ghost Boy's dialogue. "Bless you, Miss, you found me! But there are two still lost." The cheery tone combined with the line itself makes it sound more like "But our princess is in another castle!"
  • "I hyave to go byack!" Dakota Fanning's line delivery got away from her a little on that one.
• Narm Charm: The Other Mother changing her room into a spiderweb, then diving down towards Coraline while shrieking and cackling madly in the final confrontation can inspire a few chuckles, but still manages to be absolutely horrifying.
• No Yay:
  • The Other Mother's creepy obsession with Coraline. Not only is she the parallel version of her real-life mother, she almost fixates on taking care of Coraline by feeding her, bribing her with treats, and playing with her in hopes of devouring her soul. She also displays Yandere tendencies, and tells Coraline "You know I love you..." while in her true emaciated spider form and strokes her face, to which Coraline reacts with "You have a very funny way of showing it!"
  • The Other Mother's M.O. has a lot of parallels with the tactics that are used by pedophiles grooming children. These include over-the-top gestures and gifts, "love bombing" or showering the child with a lot of special attention right away, purposely targeting children who are neglected or lonely, gaslighting, becoming angry or upset when the child pulls away or tries to set a boundary, making negative comments about the child's family/friends/outside support system to drive a wedge between them and isolate the child, and slowly pushing the child's boundaries over time.
• Paranoia Fuel: The doll. Think about it. It's a foreign object that transforms and moves around your house when you're not looking. And it turns out to be the Other Mother's spy. Which implies the Other Mother can see through buttons. Sleep tight. Button-eyed dolls and "made like me" dolls will seem scary after watching it. God help you if you have a Just Like You or Truly Me doll from the American Girls Collection, or a My Twinn doll.
• Spiritual Successor: It might be seen as one to Silent Hill. The other world here is much more inviting but still just as sinister due to the Other Mother's presence, and shares a name with Silent Hill's Dark World. Like the Silent Hill Otherworld, this Otherworld also has Alien Geometries like rooms that are impossibly Bigger on the Inside, and Coraline even advances to the Final Boss by solving a "puzzle". The Other Mother's final form also wouldn't be out of place as Silent Hill boss plus an idealized loved one being a monster in disguise is a component of Silent Hill 2.
• Squick:
  • The Other Mother devouring "cocoa-beetles from Zanzibar" with squishy noises and a Sickening "Crunch!" as she crunches through their shells.
  • The Other Miss Spink and Miss Forcible's outfits as they perform as sirens.
• Strawman Has a Point: It's meant to be a Jerkass move on Coraline's mother's part when she won't buy her the gloves in the clothes store. Given that the price tag reads $24.19 and they're struggling financially at the moment, however, the gloves are indeed an extravagance they can't afford. But when the catalogue is sold, she buys the gloves as a gift.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: While Wybie remains a base-breaking character for reasons explained above, many acknowledge there is a way his character could been better utilized. It's revealed he is the grand-nephew of one of the Other Mother’s victims. Wybie, along with his grandmother, could have been used to explore the harm left behind by the Other Mother’s cruelty, showing how scars and pain can pass through the years when losing a loved one. But Wybie doesn’t seem to be bothered much by it, and his grandmother only receives a brief cameo near the end with no reconciliation with her long-lost sister or awareness of her fate.
• Tough Act to Follow: Although Laika has produced several other financially successful and beautifully made stop-motion films since, so far, none have reached the same level of popularity or infamy as this one.
• Toy Ship: Coraline and Wybie. Most of the time, it seems this trope is the main reason why the latter was added to the film version of the story, even though Word of God states that it was because he didn't want Coraline to be lonely and talking to herself. It's still painfully obvious on Wybie's side, though.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: About halfway through the movie, try to remind yourself that the movie is stop-motion and not CGI. Many people who saw the movie in its initial release were not impressed because they didn't realize it was stop-motion!
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Despite being terrifying, this movie is appropriate for kids, so long as they can handle a good scare every now and then. Oddly enough, the ABC Family airing slaps it with a TV-14 rating despite no edits in content being made.
• The Woobie:
  • All of the ghost children, who were lured in and tricked by the Other Mother the way Coraline was. Except she actually succeeded with them, and they've been imprisoned as ghosts for decades. One has possibly been this way since the 1800s.
  • The Other Father and the Other Wybie, who seem to be just pawns of the Other Mother but love Coraline all the same. The Other Wybie even gets muted and has his mouth sewn into a smile, and later pulls a Heroic Sacrifice.

Game Examples

• Awesome Music:
  • It's not quite the same as the Bruno Coulais movie soundtrack, but the game soundtrack done by Mark Watters is still quite excellent, between the perky and catchy Blue Things, the Outside, and the whimsical Other House theme. The tense music when you're alone in the house (especially after the nightmare) really conveys the fear and desperation Coraline is feeling.
  • Speaking of excellent soundtracks, the DS version of the game also has an outstanding soundtrack with several standouts. Considering it's a handheld licensed game with none of the production value of the movie or the console version, its commendable when you consider they could've completely half-assed the soundtrack, but they absolutely did not. Some good ones:
    • The main theme greets you from the start of the game to give you a glimpse of what's to come, and plays throughout the real world.
    • File Selection.
    • The Other World theme. A bouncy yet creepy carnival-like mix of the real world theme.
    • Wybie's theme.
    • Other Wybie's theme. A faster-paced version of Wybie's theme, but with a slight hint of innocence and sadness thanks to the instrumentation.
    • Second Capture. A creepy theme for when the Other Mother begins to reveal her nefarious plans.
    • Dancing. A bouncy catchy theme for minigames.
    • Dreams. A heartwarming theme for the (freed) ghost children.
• Critical Dissonance: The Coraline game was overall savaged by critics and sits at a miserable 42 on Metacritic, yet has a 95% approval rating on Google and a 4.6/5 rating on Ebay, and the majority of customer reviews on sites like Amazon and Gamestop are positive. The game must have hit the mark somewhere.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: The game is about the length of the movie, which isn't bad for a movie, but for a video game, it's quite brief.
• Mainstream Obscurity: Considering the overwhelming popularity of the Neil Gaiman book and the Henry Selick animated movie, very few even know a Coraline video game even exists (the video game page went up in 2020, a whole decade after the movie page was created). Even hardcore Coraline fans tend to be surprised of this games' existence. Though, considering the reputation licensed games tend to have, you honestly cannot blame them.
• Memetic Mutation: "Don't you DARE disobey me, Coraline!" <Angry> <Hurt> <Angry Yell>
• Most Wonderful Sound: The "Fantas-Tonishing!" theme, especially after completing a particularly tough challenge.
• Narm: The Bicycle Crash failure in the game got this reaction from people for being more funny than scary. Coraline and Wybie's expressions stay completely stoic through the whole thing.
• No Problem with Licensed Games: The DS version (developed by Art Co. Ltd) is viewed as being quite decent and an improvement over the console version, due to putting its own twist on the story and properly adapting it for a video game, playing out like an interactive adventure. The original soundtrack is a major standout.
• Older Than They Think: Unlike most licensed tie-in games, the video game actually predates the movie release by a whole week.
• The Problem with Licensed Games: The PS2 and Wii versions do a decent job of recreating the Pink Palace, but are otherwise filled with dull mini-games, complete with unskippable win/lose animations. Enemies inexplicably inhabit the Other World before its sinister nature is revealed, and huge chunks of the film are omitted or demoted, including the entire existence of the ghost children (who do appear briefly in minigames), and the Other Mother's hand retrieving the key. In addition, the film's soundtrack for both versions is replaced by generic spooky fare, although the Wii release got the better end of it with an orchestrated soundtrack. Positively Dreadful did a review on the game as well.
• So Okay, It's Average: The overall reaction to the console game — from those people who actually went out of their way to play it, of course. It's a very relaxing and inoffensive game. The DS Game received a markedly better reception than the console game.
• Tough Act to Follow: The game got it bad, being a licensed video game based on a critically acclaimed and beloved animated movie, which was based on an acclaimed book. General reactions say that while the Coraline game isn't a terrible game in its own right, it's nothing outstanding. Some appreciate it for existing in the first place as an overall inoffensive and delightful bonus trip into the world of Coraline.

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