Imagine you’ve just moved into an apartment in 150-year-old house - in murky Oregon, all weird angles and Gothic decay. Upstairs lives a limber Russian, Mr. Bobinsky (Ian McShane), who’s training mice to perform a circus, while downstairs are two retired actresses, Miss Sprink and Miss Forcible (Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French) for whom life is a bawdy performance. As you search the grounds for a lost well, a young companion, Wybie (Robert Bailey Jr.), emerges from the woods, as well as a bristling cat. (Keith David)

Bored yet? Coraline is. She can’t wait to escape through a magic door, into another world that revolves around her.

Her “mundane” world is sufficiently lush and varied to intrigue the film’s viewers. Employing stop-motion animation with subtle computer enhancement, Coraline’s visual design is refreshingly old-fashioned, with grittier textures and jerkier movement than pure CGI outings. The characters are spindly puppets similar to those in director Henry Selick’s previous films, The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and James and the Giant Peach (1996). Selick avoids the pop goth of fellow Nightmare alumnus Tim Burton, favoring tradition instead. The film is based on Neil Gaiman’s 2002 children’s book of the same name.

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Starring: Dakota Fanning, Terry Hatcher, John Hodgman

Directed By: Henry Selick

Written by: Neil Gaiman, Henry Selick

Anyway, we return to Coraline (Dakota Fanning), whose journalist parents (Teri Hatcher, John Hodgman) don’t have time for their irrepressible daughter following the move. Hunched over their computers, they instruct her to explore the house. The aforementioned magic door is discovered, and after a false start, Coraline is able to crawl through.

There she discovers a mirror of her own house, and receives welcome from a woman who appears very much like her mother, but with buttons for eyes and a big smile. She had cooked a feast, and invites the girl to eat. Coraline protests that she has a mother - the woman explains, ” I’m your other mother, silly.”

There’s an Other Father too, who plays piano tunes about Coraline and plants gardens for her. Plus, there are even more eccentric versions of the eccentric neighbours. Only the Cat is not “another anything”, and gives warnings about this other world that can be summed up as clichés: ” All is not as it seems”; ” If it’s too good to be true… “; and of course, ” Be careful what you wish for.”

The warnings are so immediate and obvious, it’s hard to feel tempted as Coraline supposedly does by the prospect of remaining in the other world. (Especially at a cost.) It’s sickly-rich treats, gaudy theatre shows, and forced cheerfulness are so unsettling that it’s a relief that they are “not as they seem.”

It’s difficult to distinguish the different worlds - the real world, the other world as illusion, and the other world as it really is. For instance, Scottie dogs appear in all three: mounted and affixed with angel wings in the real world; as a theatre audience in the other world as illusion; and as hybrid vampire bats in the other world as it really is. We are intended to see first as ordinary, the second wondrous, and the third creepy. But really, they’re all creepy!

As in a nightmare, characters and events loop around in increasingly unhinged versions. It’s fascinating to see how they’ll pop up next, but there’s little sense of stark contrast. One can accept that Coraline’s gradual appreciate the world around her is a significant theme. A more questionable theme is that it’s dangerous to dream further than your own backyard.

Neil Gaiman works the tropes of fairy stories into the piece: 19th century lore of disappearing parents and children; Hansel and Gretel’s temptations; a Cat that’s definitely Cheshire. He synthesizes the stories into something unique and contemporary. Its most ready comparison is Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), though Coraline is less heavy-handed and more appropriate for kids.

Coraline has an attractive look, rich characters, and an exciting battle of wills in its climax. But as in Alice’s Wonderland, it’s difficult to enjoy a world that’s more malevolent than magical.