Gorgeous and frightening

Rating: 10/10 (8 February 2009)

Every bit as good as Henry Selick's masterpiece, The Nightmare Before Christmas. Like that one, the film finds a perfect balance between beautiful and creepy. I would describe it as a children's horror film. In fact, I think this might go down as one of the scariest children's films ever made. The story is about a young girl, Coraline, who finds an odd doorway in her new house that leads to a mirror-image world, where her parents pay attention to her and give her anything she wants. It's wonderful, but odd Â– everyone has black buttons for eyeballs. Coraline's first few trips to the alternate world are fun, but soon her "other mother" insists that she get her own buttons. The story is familiar. It reminded me a lot of Pan's Labyrinth and Spirited Away. The plot also takes a couple of obvious shortcuts that don't make a lot of sense. Fortunately, these things are hard to notice when you're watching Selick's eye-popping design. Pixar's got its work cut out for it if it wants to win Best Animated Film at next year's Oscar ceremony. It also has one of the most amazing musical scores I've heard in a while, by Bruno Coulais.