Coraline is an animated movie that appears to be a typical Tim Burtonesque dark yet family friendly flick; however, the storyline is quite chilling, especially for young children. With a mother look-a-like as the ultimate villain who removes childrens' eyeballs and replaces them with sewn on buttons, the movie is truly a child's worst nightmare brought to very colorful animated life. The stop-motion animated film is based on the children's book by Neil Gaiman, and both the book and the movie have a strong following - although most actual parents who have commented about the film here on the Kids TV/Movies site are decidedly on the hate it side.
I understand why parents would hate this film. The movie is a kids' horror flick, and could be disturbing to say the least and probably absolutely terrifying for many kids. While normally I'm on the extreme conservative side when it comes to films, funny enough, I love this one. The animation is just gorgeous, and I also really like the underlying lesson about being wary of things that seem too good to be true. I took my kids to this one completely clueless when it came out in theaters. Probably the one time I didn't thoroughly research a film before taking the kids, and it turns out to be this one. I was totally horrified that my kids were sitting there watching it, but they seemed to be okay, so we didn't leave. In fact, while they did whimper a little during the scariest parts, they were fine by the end and didn't have any nightmares or anything (shocking considering this movie's content), and we had a great family discussion and still use the film's "too good to be tr! ue" message to remind them to follow that feeling they get that tells them something isn't quite right.
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Family Films
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