101 'Coraline' Facts: Things About The Movie That Will Surprise You

'Coraline' is an animated horror movie that launched on the big screen in 2009.

These facts about 'Coraline' reveal disturbing scenes the movie offers. It will help viewers to think deeply about the story.

Coraline was an 11-year-old girl. She had chin-length dark blue hair, which was probably dyed. She has oval brown eyes and eyebrows, and thin coral pink lips.

The movie was an adaptation of Neil Gaiman's book, 'Coraline', which in turn was inspired by a creepy folktale. The story revolves around a small girl named Coraline. The book was adapted into a film by the director Henry Sellick in 2009.

Around 24 frames per second were shot to make 'Coraline'. It ends with a strong message of appreciating what you have, loving your family, and being brave no matter what the situation is. In the end, Coraline realizes that even though her family isn't imperfect, at least they are real.

Surprising Facts About 'Coraline'

Based on the book, 'Coraline' by Neil Gaiman, the stop motion animation film revolves around the story of a young lonely girl who ventures into a dangerous world that somewhat resembles her own. As she battles with the evils of this newly found adventure world, who are determined to restain her into their world.

Coraline realizes she needs to defeat her personal problems in the real world.

The film 'Coraline' was supposed to be a live-action.

Selick insisted on using stop motion animation for the film.

According to Selick, a live-action form would curb the real essence of the film.

It took four years to complete the shooting of the animated film 'Coraline'.

In the other world, the other mother seems to be perfect in every way, but the father is the mother's flying monkey.

30 animators worked on the production set of 'Coraline' at any given time. Stop motion animation takes a lot of time and patience.

Wybie Lovat, who played a very important role in the film, was never a real character in the book.

Wybie's mention has been repeated many times in the novel but was never actually seen.

Selick insisted on keeping the shopping scene of Coraline with her mother, as it was one of the last scenes of Coraline with her parents.

The novel version is set in England, but the film is set in the United States. Selick uses Chicago as the backdrop.

The movie takes are placed in Ashland, which is famous for its Shakespeare Festival. The festival also takes place in the movie.

According to Selick, the crazy old man from upstairs, Mr. Bobinski did not have a mice circus as he claimed to have; he was simply crazy.

However, in the alternative universe, we see that he runs a circus with rats.

The actual world of 'Coraline' was purposely created to be extremely flat, so when she traveled to the other world it would appear bouncier.

'Coraline' was successful after its release; it was also nominated as the Best Animated Feature Film at the Oscars.

The band, They Might Be Giants, created a soundtrack just for the film 'Coraline'.

The soundtrack by, They Might Be Giants, was never used in the film since it did not fit the dark theme of the movie.

'Coraline' won the 2009 Webby Award for the Best Use of Animation or Motion Graphics.

Popular 'Coraline' Theories

The 2009 animated film 'Coraline' gained a huge number of followers since its release. The cult film stirred the mind of its viewers, and as a result, the cliffhanger movie has spawned several fan theories. These theories make the horror movie even more terrifying and interesting.

One of the first scenes of the movie involves the Jones family moving into the creepy Pink Palace.

The well was the portal to the other world, with the entrance being situated at the bottom of the well. The mouth of the well was surrounded by mushrooms, forming a structure known as fairy rings.

Entering through a fairy ring is thought to bring a series of unwanted events in life, like getting spirited away in a world of non-living beings and never returning.

The fairy ring was a forewarning of Coraline entering into the other world.

Wybie exclaimed to Coraline that the well was so dark and deep, if someone fell down the well and looked up, they would see a sky full of stars even in the day.

This line describes further why the well is considered to be the entrance to the other world since it is always nighttime in that world.

When Beldalm was seen crafting a doll at the beginning of the film, the doll appeared out of nowhere through her window.

The doll floating down from the starry night resembles that someone must have dropped it down the well from the evil world.

The fan theories suggest that each bowl of taffy resembles a missing child of the pink palace.

The dresses of each ghost child look contemporary to the years mentioned in the taffy jars.

Mr. Bobinsky, the upper-story Russian neighbor, had tinted blue skin due to radiations poisoning in Chernobyl.

At first glance, it may seem that the skin color was just a creative decision, but on a deeper observation, we see that he wears a medal throughout the film, which was given to brave liquidators of the Chernobyl disaster.

The boring blue boy is not just a reference to Thomas Gainsborough's 'The Blue Boy' but is actually Beldam's deceased son.

Fan theories suggest that the Beldam probably lived with his son in the Pink Palace in the past, who passed away tragically. For this reason, she hunts down children to recapture the lost love.

The origins of perhaps one of the most mysterious characters of the film, The Cat, is unknown. His attachment to Wybie and Coraline suggested that he was probably Wybies's great grandfather.

Maybe The Cat lost Mrs. Lovat's twin sister to Beldam many years ago and, on his adventure to find his daughter in the evil world, fell prey to Beldam, who turned him into a cat through her sorcery.

Many fan theories suggest that the happy ending of Coraline was actually too good to be true. She could never actually leave Beldam's layer, and the Beldam might have won.

The final shot of the garden closely resembles the one in the counterpart, which is really suspicious.

Apart from that, Coraline's parents are trapped in the mirror in the real world while they live in the snow globe. However, there is no explanation behind how Beldam's magic worked in reality.

The Cat disappears suddenly at the end, which shows there is still magic in real life.

Mrs. Lovat purposefully allowed the Joneses to move into the Pink Palace even though she never allowed any tenant with kids.

She grew fearful that Wybie would be Beldam's next target and, as a result, arranged for Coraline to be taken instead of them.

Coraline's Cast

The characters of the movie Coraline are etched in the minds of people who watched it. The entire cast of the film, the voice behind the characters, gave life to each and every character and produced a mind-blowing film. The deep plot of the animated movie did not fail to play with the minds of adults as well.

Coraline Jones, the main character around whom the plot of the movie revolved, was voiced by the popular Hollywood actress Dakota Fanning.

The young voice of Dakota did justice to the character Coraline. She was curious, courageous, intelligent, and tired of not being taken seriously because of her young age.

Mrs. Mel Jones, Coraline's mother, was played by Teri Hatcher. Teri also played the role of the Beldam, known as the other mother.

While Mrs. Jones is a busy woman and a little inattentive, she loved her child very much and cared about her.

Coraline seems to dislike her mother since she thinks that Mel does not let her fit in. According to the young girl, her mother is boring.

Coraline's dad, Mr. Jones or Charlie, is voiced wonderfully by John Hodgeman. He is a very kind man who spends most of his time on the computer and spends very little time with Coraline.

The nameless black cat, who was referred to as The Cat in the film, was played by Keith David. The Cat had a very important role in the movie.

Even though The Cat actually belonged to the real world but had the ability to talk in the other world.

Unlike the other characters in the story, The Cat does not have any counterpart in the evil world.

The Cat was often seen to belittle Coraline but helped her the most to escape from the Beldam. The Cat could move from one world to the other freely.

The Beldam or the other mother is the ruler of the other world. The primary antagonist of the novel is voiced by Teri Hatcher, one who voices the real mother.

The Other Mother of the Beldam looked like her real mother but was much thinner, taller, pale-skinned, and button-eyed. She had long black hair, which moved on its own.

The Other Mother seems to collect children from real life and love them possessively, even to the point of destruction. She took the soul of these children and cared for them until they passed away.

The Other Father, a creation of the Other Mother, is also voiced by John Hodgeman, but his songs are sung by John Linell.

The Other Father is more cheerful in nature than the real father of Coraline but is not allowed to talk to Coraline directly.

The Other Father's character was created by The Beldam to trick Coraline into staying in their world forever but ended up revealing too much to Coraline. For this, the Other Mother punished him and transformed him into a grub-like creature whose main purpose was to track Coraline.

Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, as well as their other counterparts, are voiced by Jenifer Sander and Dawn French, respectively.

They were two retired actresses in reality but are still youthful with a continuing career in the other world.

Spink and Forcible gave Coraline a stone to protect her from evil after reading her fortune.

The film adaptation of Mr. Bobo, Sergei Alexander Bobinsky, was voiced by Ian McShane. He was referred to as Crazy Old Man, who lived upstairs and trained mice for the circus.

The counterpart of Mr. Bobinsky trained rats and was, in fact, made of rats. McShane also voices Mr. Bobo's counterpart.

The three ghost children are played by Aankha Neal, George Selick, and Hannah Kaiser. There were two girls and one boy who belonged to different time zones but were trapped by the Beldam in the dark space behind the mirror.

Coraline, in her struggle to escape, also frees the young children who go to the afterlife after their soul is restored.

Coraline's friend in the film, Wybie Lovat, was voiced by Robert Bailey Jr. His character serves as the comic relief in this dark horror film.

Wyborne or Wybie Lovat was a character that was created for the film and did not have any existence in the story.

Hidden Facts About Coraline

The filmmakers made some changes to the plot, characters, and setting in the movie. The introduction of some additional characters in the movie and a wonderful depiction of the infinity layer plot of the world of Coraline are the director's personal touch to the film, which gave the fans to speculate and come up with some hidden facts.

Coraline's family was broke, which made them move across the country. They had to downgrade their expenses to cope up with the financial crisis.

The hard times of the Coraline family explain their unusual ad hoc meals and why her mother refuses to buy her mittens.

They also used noticeably outdated technology.

In a deleted scene of the movie, it was seen when Coraline's mother asks her father to buy a new computer; the frustrated father replies with a tone of sarcasm, claiming that such new technologies do not come free of cost.

Coraline's father is professionally a technical writer, but on looking closely into his computer screen, it seems as if he is sneaking some time to write a novel while handling deadlines of his own work.

Her mother also appears to be in the field of technical writing with her father; probably, she was a technical editor.

The two movers in the first scene of the movie are a dedication to the Ranft Brothers.

The moving truck, when pulls up read Ranft Brothers, Selick dedicated this role to his friend Joe Ranft who died in a tragic car crash in 2005.

The Ranft brothers worked with Selick in his popular movie, 'The Nightmare Before Christmas'.

The ketchup on her father's shirt in the scene when Coraline's parents were tucking her to bed is actually a positive sign.

In an unreleased shot, their family goes out to dinner, which means that they did not eat dad's cooked food.

Beldam could see all the button eyes.

She watches the kids with the eyes of the dolls she crafts.

Not only the Ghost kids but Beldam can see through the button eyes of everyone in her world.

The Beldam made the world in a way that Coraline would like it. The garden was built in the shape of her face, and she was bedazzled to see all the blooming colors in the garden.

This is probably because they should belong to Beldam, and she paid someone to build a garden that looks like her.

There are many carnivorous plants in the Other Father's garden.

There's a pitcher plant that was seen to devour a frog.

The purple plant which Coraline enjoyed was actually a Venus flytrap plant.

There are many Shakespeare references throughout the movie.

The child, when falling down the stairs of Linden's department, shouts 'My kingdom for a horse'; this is actually a quote from Shakespeare's history-tragedy Richard III.

Spinks and Forcible, while dancing, recited 'What a piece of work man is'; a famous monologue from Shakespeare's Hamlet.

In their apartment, we see two posters of their old burlesque shows named Julius Sees Her and King Leer, a reference to Shakespeare's creations.

The painting of the boring blue boy shifts in the two worlds.

In Coraline's actual world, the boy in the painting looks upset because his ice cream fell on the ground.

In Beldam's world, Coraline finds the same picture, but in this one, the boy is seen to be smiling, and his ice cream is perfect.