Coraline (animation)/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


    • Don't forget how she cheerfully disfigures and tortures the beings she creates to capture children, just because they try to resist her. Poor Other Wybie and Other Father...
  • Creepy Sexy: The Other Mother is the creepiest character in the story, but she's also quite hot.
  • Ear Worm: They Might Be Giants spend some time makin' up a song about Coraline...
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: The Other Wybie is insanely popular among the fanbase.
  • Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: More like "Everyone is Lenin in Russia", according to this article.
  • Evil Is Sexy: The Other Mother looks sort of like how children who don't get the concept of Sexy imagine Sexy to be.
    • Presumably you mean her second form, her first is deliciously curvy.
  • Hell Is That Noise: "GIVE IT BACK! GIVE IT BACK! GIVE IT BACK!"
  • HSQ: Breaks the record for PG-rated films.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Coraline.
  • Les Yay: Ms. Spink and Ms. Forcible. Kinda.
  • Memetic Mutation: ☻_☻
  • Memetic Outfit: The official website has a section where you can add button eyes to pictures. Let your imagination runs free...
    • Coraline's hat has gained quite a following too.
    • Real-life example: A contest was held on the official site, where winners would receive custom-made Nike Dunks sneakers, which are made to look stitched together with patches, feature big, black buttons on the sides, and the soles are blue with white stars, much like the shirt the Other Mother makes for Coraline.
  • Misaimed Marketing: During the TV broadcast of the movie they aired an advertisement for a brand of dolls that have buttons for eyes.
  • Nightmare Fuel: in addition to the book, The fate of Other Wybie, the the theater scene, and the final battle with the hand
  • Paranoia Fuel: The doll. Think about it. A foreign object that transforms and moves around your house when you're not looking. And it turns out to be the Other Mother's spy. Which implies the other mother can see through buttons. Sleep tight.
  • Puppy Love: Coraline and Wybie. Most of the time, it seems this trope is the main reason why the latter was added to the film version of the story, even though Word of God states that it was because he didn't want Coraline to be lonely and talking to herself. It's still painfully obvious on Wybie's side, though.
    • And that the producer Bill Mechanic wanted Selick to put in lots and lots of kids. Adding Wybie helped Selick to satisfy that need as well.
  • Uncanny Valley: Done on purpose. Those eyes...
    • Not to mention the Other Mother's skin in her final form.
    • Gaiman is something of a fan of this trope. Half of the persona for Islington in Neverwhere came out of the budget special effects cupboard in the form of 3M light reflective fabric and... black contact lenses.
    • Also, there's the fact that the stop-motion in the other world is ever so slightly off, especially during the circus scene. It's hardly enough to be noticed, but enough to be unnerving.
    • For the shots down the tunnel to the Other House, the two cameras used to get a 3D effect were set a bit farther apart, warping the perspective enough to make you realize something was up. In other words, when you looked down the tunnel, you were seeing it through a pair of eyes that no human can have.
  • Visual Effects of Awesome: About halfway through the movie, try to remind yourself that the movie is stop-motion and not CGI. No, you can't.
  • What Do You Mean It's for Kids?: Yes, despite being terrifying, this movie is appropriate for kids, so long as they can handle a good scare every now and then. Oddly enough, the ABC Family airing slaps it with a TV-14 rating.
  • The Woobie: Coraline, the ghost children, other father, other Wybie, and arguably the real Wybie.