The Coraline Experience – Story & The Brain

Kaitlin Brown

I’ve always been into the creepy and macabre. You don’t end up a forensic science major without some kind of love for it. The first time I saw Coraline I immediately fell in love with it. My brother was visiting home, and my family watched it all together with the little 3D glasses the DVD came with. I never found it scary or disturbing, I don’t even remember how young I was, I just remember liking the dolls.

It wasn’t until high school that I learned, people were terrified of this movie. I truly didn’t understand why they were terrified. It wasn’t like I didn’t watch it since that first time. My dad would sing the Other Father’s Song to be silly, and I just never associated it with being a scary movie. Looking at it with my friend’s perspective in mind I can understand how it would scare someone, but to me, it was just so endearing. The mysterious parts just drew me further in, trying to figure out exactly what they were or how they worked.

The older I got the more I also realized I identified with the characters in the story. Coraline was always the odd one out in this world, and I really resonated with that. This movie became a really big thing for me back in high school, and between that being the time everyone felt isolated and alone I was further isolated. I live in a very small town, where everyone knows everything. Being the girl whose brother died, wasn’t exactly the easiest thing to develop new friends, or even keep old ones. It felt like I could understand her in a way that a lot of characters failed to connect. And I kept that into my adult life. Now I relate even more to this character, with her wild but well-meaning neighbors. My neighbors back home are nothing short of characters themselves. My direct next-door neighbor, Georgia, loves to overshare, is way over-involved with dogs, and has just accidentally interwoven herself into my family as like a kind of crazy aunt. She reminds me so dearly of the downstairs neighbors Spink and Forcible. My dad even reminds me of Coraline’s father, always trying to make her laugh even when she isn’t necessarily the happiest with her family.

Coraline also has a large fan following. Over this past summer, they rereleased the movie in theaters for the anniversary. Now in my area most certainly movie theaters are dying, and usually, not even special releases of movies can bring them back. To go with the launch of The Nightmare Before Christmas Light Show they rereleased the movie in theaters. Besides me and my 2 parents, there were maybe 5 other people in the theater. Coraline though, every single seat was filled. Those movie quizzes during the preview had everyone shouting the answers. At that moment, I felt more connected than ever, the experience was nothing I’d ever seen before. Everyone even stayed for the special at the end, talking about how the studio had made the dolls and the care that went into the movie.

Features in the story

So now why exactly was this movie specifically so capable of drawing people in? The movie does a good job of building narrative techniques that build intrigue. The movie never lets you feel safe and fully comfortable by using various narrative techniques to evoke emotions.

We start the movie with a mysterious figure with needles for hands cutting apart a doll and remaking it to look like someone else- the movie’s protagonist Coraline. The opening sequence ends with her sending the doll out the window it floated in from out into the starry void. We then move to the Jones family moving into their new apartment in the Pink Palace. Off the bat, we see her adventurous side, if I remember correctly she starts off exploring the grounds outside. The garden is all withered and dead, the grass on the hills is all withered and dead, and the forest is too. It sets up how bland the real world is to Coraline.

Coraline then meets Wybie, who introduces a new mysterious element- the well. This beginning section sets up a vigilance trigger. There are elements that you don’t really understand and don’t make sense alone. How can a well be so deep, that you would see a sky full of stars in the middle of the day? There’s nothing in our known world that would make that happen. What kind of creature has needles for fingers? How does a doll float off in the sky? This very beginning of the movie sets up this vigilance trigger that continues to be used for the rest of the movie.

Coraline and Wybie don’t get along in the very beginning. They argue before both go home. The next day when Coraline wakes up her mom says that Wybie dropped off a doll, and the doll from the beginning is there. This combined with the vigilance trigger previously set up, easily triggers the feeling of paranoia. The fact only the viewer knows not to fully trust the world, also helps to build that feeling of paranoia. You know fundamentally something isn’t right, but not yet what exactly is making it that way. This doll becomes Coraline’s main friend, and due to the weather causing her to stay inside, she takes the doll around the house exploring. This sequence sets up how painfully boring and bland the real world is to her. At the end of her exploration, she finds a sealed-off door in the wall down on the floor. When she has her mom, open it she finds a brick wall behind it and is disappointed. She wants that opportunity to escape what she considers painfully boring. The establishment of this aids in setting up the core plot and conflict of the movie.

After dinner, which Coraline doesn’t eat because she doesn’t like it, she goes to bed and ends up getting led to the mysterious door. This time beyond the door is a magical portal that leads to the Other World, which is the same general setup of the world but better in every way. The colors are bright and vibrant, and it feels full of life. The Other Mother and Other Father are everything she wants, the perfect parents who have time and want to do things with her, they make the food she wants. They even healed the rash on her hand from when she went exploring in the gardens of the real world. It’s the perfect world in her eyes. Within the story world, it sets up a reality shifter. This new world is too perfect, everyone is the best possible version to the point of absurdity. This also makes you feel curious, you want to know more about this other world, is it just a dream, how does it work?

Coraline returns to the real world and meets her neighbors, the jumping mouse circus owner Mr Bobinzky and the former actresses Mrs Sphink and Forcible. These neighbors are for lack of better words, cooky, they all are well-meaning and kind to Coraline but they are out there and involved in their own little worlds. As such during the return to the Other World, we’re introduced next to these idealized versions of her neighbors along with a thriving garden. Bobinzky’s Jumping Mouse Circus is a spectacle, and the actresses have a full theater and put on awe-inspiring acts.

It isn’t until the cat talks to Coraline that you begin to feel skeptical about this world. This skepticism evolves when the Other Mother finally tries to get Coraline to sew buttons into her eyes and stay there forever. This moment serves to add suspense to the plot. You start to see that this world isn’t perfect and the Other Mother isn’t as ideal as she seems. This further evolves also when the Other Mother shows her not human form, taking on a more spider-like appearance with the furniture becoming bugs.

Another plot device used is partial dopamine, when Coraline escapes to the real world. Upon her return, there is still a reason she needs to go back to face the Other Mother. Her parents are taken, and she knows it’s her from the doll left of them. You feel frustration with Coraline, she escaped, and she should have won but the Other Mother stopped her from achieving that. It also brings in the feeling of confusion. How does the Other Mother have any control in this world? There have been hints leading up that she has some influence on the outside world: seeing the neighbors, fixing the things Coraline doesn’t like, and getting what Coraline wants when the real world can’t give it, but we’ve never seen her remove people from the world. This adds to the world the dream of the world device, as you don’t know which world she’s in anymore. Is it reality, is it another Other World? There’s no real way of telling, what world she’s in exactly anymore.

As the climax approaches, Coraline retakes the eyes of the ghost children, you feel optimism. Even with the cat having to help, it’s the first time you feel hope that the story will end well. The fight against the Other Mother and the release of the ghost children introduce poetic justice. The bad guy lost, the good guy is home, and the others who have been hurt are finally free. It feels like the story is concluding the way it should. You also see Coraline grow, she apologizes to her parents when they return. It feels like the good ending is finally happening. There is also the plot twist though, the hand follows Coraline through the door in an attempt to reclaim the key. This led to a feeling of distress, she was meant to finally win and be happy, and she’s shown that she’s grown and learned. So why is the bad guy still after her? A lucky twist occurs when Wybie finds her at the right time, and they together deal with the hand throwing it into the well.

The movie ends with a pivot into positive emotions. Coraline is having a garden party with all of her neighbors and her family. Wybie even brings his grandmother, the owner of the Pink Palace to meet everyone. It made me feel gratification, Coraline has everything she wants. They might not be perfect, but all of the people she cares about are there, safe and happy. The last shot though with the cat wandering back into the Other World, invokes the feeling of being wrong. You expect after the door is closed and the key is thrown away that the world will be gone. But it’s still there, and maybe another character might one day fall into this trap.

Why does this movie bring you back in so often?

I feel like every single time I watch this movie I catch something I hadn’t before. It’s such a detail-filled movie that changes your experiences with it and that new knowledge. One detail that I acquired with age is that the Other Mother in that opening scene making the doll isn’t using typical doll-making tools. The tools she’s using are closer to either lobotomy or embalming tools. This knowledge completely changes that viewing experience immediately triggering a sense of danger. This movie constantly evolves with the number of times you view the movie, which isn’t inherently unique, but the more involved you get with this movie the more your view changes. Obviously, I always have the option to go back and watch the movie again and in that watching, I might catch something new again that changes the experience with the movie. I think it’s a wonderful thing that no matter how many times you see something it can still change and leave a new impact on you. There are also so many different theories that still surround this movie even 15 years later. No theory surrounding this movie has ever been proven or disproven truly. There are so many circulating around the internet that whenever you encounter one, it also changes the way you view and interact with the movie. It’s never the same experience watching Coraline, making it so unique. For example, while revising this paper I noticed that they always use the same shots to show the real world and the Other World. Everything is in the same place but the Other World is more whimsical, with items defying gravity but still filling that same space as the more mundane and boring items in the real world do.