Coraline — Creeping Out Little Kids in 3D

Today I saw the movie adaptation of his book Coraline, and it delivered on every level. It was also the 3D version which worked out beautifully.

Neil Gaiman rocks. His work is pretty legion and all of it is simultaneously lush in detail, rich in characters, darkly humorous, and insanely creepy. He seems to do quite well in building whole worlds of mythology out of echoes of source material creating stories that have huge scopes but still anchored with a sense of reality–a sense that this isn’t just a story.

Coraline is a deeply spooky book. Arguably it’s for kids, but it’s a nightmare-maker for sure. I remember reading it and being amazed at how engrossing the journey is. It’s got great helpings of fear and wonder and is a great page turner. Julie and I went to an event in Berkeley where Gaiman came out and read the entire book; they rented out a church and everyone sat in the pews and the old, cold building really added to the proceedings. He also announced that a movie adaptation was in progress and name dropped Michelle Pfeiffer in the role of the Mother.

That was in 2002, and I guess some names were changed, and in fact the movie screenplay was somewhat substantially rewritten by Henry Selick (James and the Giant Peach, Nightmare before Christmas). The changes were mostly character additions that serve to add a little more meat to the story and fill out some really well done set pieces of a garden and an upstairs and downstairs neighbor. The mood is mostly consistent, so the alteration to the source material is not bad. The undercurrent of eerie from the book is preserved very well and when the eerie gives way to outright diabolical, the movie fires on all cylinders.

I think the animated nature of the movie adds to the mood. They did a very good job of walking the line between cartoony and spooky. I think that also makes the movie acceptable to a very wide age range. I think younger viewers will see the archetypes of good and evil clearly and can see it at that level and the more mature the viewer, the more subtleties come to the forefront.

As for the treatment in 3D – there was only one really obvious “in your face” 3D moment, and it’s even during the opening credits, so you can get over it early. Henry Selick sets up the scenes and lets you see them, so all you get is a feeling of immersiveness and richness without it being gimmicky.

The very cool Cartoon Art Museum in San Francsisco is holding an exhibit of storyboards, drawings, and puppets from the movie that I will definitely have to check out.