We’re still taking it relatively easy after our long absence and in most cases, nothing is easier to watch than an animated film. A few minutes in however, I realize that this isn’t your average animated film, which makes this not easy to watch at all. While I recognized the names of actresses like Dakota Fanning and Teri Hatcher, I began to doubt that this could be an American film. That’s because this turned out to be one of the creepiest animated films I’ve ever seen and I doubted that a Hollywood studio would have the courage to make such a scary children’s movie.

The creep factor starts right from the opening sequence of a cloth doll being torn apart and then resewn to take on a new appearance. Unsurprisingly the new doll is dead a wringer for the heroine of the story, 11-year old Coraline Jones. We gather that her family are new in town, moving into a dilapidated and ancient house that the young girl is none too fond of. Moreover her parents seem busy with their jobs and have little time to spare for her. It’s a familiar premise but the setup is executed elegantly with minimal exposition and just enough of a sense of mystery to leave the audience eager to know more. When Coraline discovers a mysterious small door that leads to a magical copy of this house, it’s not much of a surprise to the audience that she is tempted by it but the wonder of it is that we’re tempted right along with her even know we know in our bones that there’s something wrong with the picture.

As I later learned, this is based on a novel by Neil Gaiman and was directed by Henry Selick, who first became famous for The Nightmare Before Christmas. This would explain why this is one of the rare Hollywood films with genuinely scary moments. I can’t emphasize enough how unusual that is. Many Hollywood films make use of creepy themes but stop short of actually trying to scare the audience but not this one. Moreover, the horror is insidious. Coraline is amazed at first when the Other Father offers to play the piano as her real father has no musical skills at all, but then we realize that it is the piano that is playing him instead. I also loved that Coraline makes for a reasonably intelligent protagonist. None of the stupid heroine falling into obvious traps trope here while the audience screams at her to stop. Instead the trap here is so seductive that we can believably acknowledge that we’d fall into it ourselves if we were to encounter it.

That Coraline mostly uses stop-motion animation only accentuates its creepiness. Dolls are inherently scary things and this film uses real cloth dolls, with black buttons for dead eyes that look like infinite pools of darkness. Also impressive is that when a scene calls for a thick fog bank, instead of using CGI they actually use dry ice. The set-pieces that Other Mother builds for Coraline are fantastic spectacles as well. I especially appreciated that the performances are genuinely magical and amazing. The sinister nature of these creations don’t detract from the sense of delight that we feel in watching them play out.

Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised by how impactful this animated film turned out to be and enjoyed it very much. In my mind, this makes for the perfect contrast to a film like, say, Song of the Sea, which is so kids-centric that it ends up pulling all of its punches. On the other hand, I can certainly agree that parents who allow young children to watch this might be a bit responsible. This is first-grade nightmare material for sure.