A Masterpiece

Rating: 10/10 (25 September 2018)

Almost 10 years on now, I fully recognise Coraline as one of the defining points in my life. Coraline is a film loved by critics and hated by parents. It's use of creepy imagery, it's groundbreaking animation and simple yet powerful plot trap you into its horrifying web of a message.
I don't feel I need to explain the story, IMDB can do that for me, all I will say though is that the film is a phenomenal moral tale about parenting. In a similar way to the way Spirited Away goes about its fantastic analogy, Coraline uses simple ideas for great effect.
And of course, parents hate it. Why? It might be down to the fact that the film includes some horrifyingly tense and scary moments that, as a kid, frightened me. I was nine when I watched this film (yes guys, that does mean I'm only 18 now) but the effect of this film grew on me by each day I thought about it and to this day it still gets better.
In the same way The Twilight Zone encapsulated kids of the 60s and Doctor Who had our parents hiding behind sofas, Coraline is an extremely important story psychologically for children and is thrilling to watch. The moments of my childhood I remember with film feature things like the melting faces moment in Raiders of the Lost Arc, the Rabbit Massacre in Watership Down and of course, Coraline escaping from her Spider Mother.
It's the buttons, it's the tapping of the needle legs, it's the screaming children who've lost their eyes, the rats made of sand and the stitched mouth of Wyborn (can't remember spelling) as the mother makes him smile.
Every element of this film is designed to scare, thrill, entertain and push the boundaries of what is acceptable. The parents are wrong. Coraline teaches an important lesson about fear, that we need it and need to learn about it.
If you're a parent and you're wondering if you should show this to your kids, do it. It's one of the moments in film that affected my childhood and turned me into who I am today. For a film to affect me this much after ten years is incredible and I wonder what I'd be like if I hadn't seen it. Maybe I would not like horror movies? Maybe I wouldn't like movies in general? This film taught me what film can do, it's power to make people feel. I remember my sisters reaction (she was only 7 so maybe she was too young). She cried that night and wouldn't go to sleep. However all these years later, she considers the film to be as good as I do. For a film to make someone stay up all night in fear and tears and still make the viewer fall in love with it is astounding. And I still enjoy it as much as an adult now as I did when I was a kid.
This film is a masterpiece.