Monsters, Ink: New 3-D Movie 'Coraline'

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IN HENRY SELICK'S 3-D animated fantasy "Coraline," a black cat speaks with Keith David's velvety tempter's baritone. And that's only the, like, eight or ninth creepiest thing in the movie.

Adapted from Neil Gaiman's 2002 novella, "Coraline" is — pardon the expression — an eye-popping kiddie Grand Guignol about an imaginative girl who wishes her parents could be just a little more — more attentive, more affectionate, more hip. And like all the best fairy tales, it's really scary.

Well, duh: Screenwriter/director Selick is best known for his spooky 1993 stop-motion musical in collaboration with Tim Burton, "The Nightmare Before Christmas." And Gaiman? Hell, he once created a character called the Corinthian who eats his victims' eyes. Oedipus-ectomy is a theme in "Coraline," too. Two key characters sport black buttons for eyes — the signature visual that lodged in the filmmaker's mind when he read the book eight years ago.

But all of Gaiman's Hugo Awards and World Fantasy Awards and his (just acquired) Newbery Medal aside, the "Sandman" creator was, says Selick, a dream collaborator who mostly left him alone to work, checking in every few months.

"Every time, he would have one to three notes that were just like his writing," Selick says. "They were exquisite. They were short. And they were always things that were doable."

Despite the author's fame, "Coraline" struggling to see print when Selick read it. The movie deal had to happen just to get the book out. "Too scary for kids" was the consensus, which Selick rejects: "In ‘Snow White,' the queen wants to have Snow White's heart delivered to her in a box," he shrugs. "Pinochio's best friend turns into an animal. Those are deeply scary things."

Selick's alterations were not minor: He moved the setting from the U.K. to the U.S. "because I was more comfortable writing American-English than English-English." (Fanboy calls for "Harry Potter"-style protectionism have calmed down, he says.) He also invented a major new character.

Gaiman penned "Coraline" for his two daughters; Selick's two sons each have a small speaking role in the film. His youngest, now 10, unwittingly helped quash the idea of making "Coraline" as a live action movie.

"I got him to lie still on his back for a second and put a couple of black buttons on his eyes," Selick recalls. "I took a picture, and it was incredibly creepy. I didn't expect what that would be like. Animation [makes] it more of a fairy tale — a little less horrific."

Well, sure. A little.

» Area theaters, opens Fri. Feb. 6

Written by Express contributor Chris Klimek
Photo courtesy Laika