RESEARCH: ART OF THE TITLE CORALINE

Coraline is an animated film based on Neil Gaiman's book of the same name. It was marketed for children, however, many people disagreed with this as they felt it was too disturbing for a young audience.

We first see many credits, in a bound book. The first we see after the production company credits is Coraline with a button for the letter '0'. As fans of the film will know, the other, fantastical, world contains a mother who wishes nothing more but to seal Coraline's place in the other world, by stitching buttons onto her eyes. The other lettering takes the form of thread.

The music is a chant, spooky undertones coming through the staccato notes. This sets the tone for the whole piece as, by association to horror author Neil Gaiman, we already know that this will be a creepy story. The dreamlike mood of the music lends itself to a shot of a rag doll with buttons for eyes floating down through a window, before being snatched up by metal spoked fingers. Almost right away, we are introduced to an array of menacing tools, to begin the deconstruction of the doll. This includes cutting the doll apart, removing her hair stitch by stitch, and removing her eyes. When these buttons are removed, the stitches are cut all at once by these metal fingers. Then, the stitches for the mouth are torn open, as if to emulate the Joker's scars, which presents the image that this will also be very creepy in a similar way. Lastly, the stuffing is removed and the doll turned inside out.

However, we are soon shown that she is simply giving the doll a makeover, as it is filled with sand, and restitched. Through this makeover, the buttons for eyes are chosen from a complete draw of buttons. Then, when the mother stitches the iconic blue hair on, we realise that the doll is actually a version of the main character, Coraline, from the posters. It seems like the mother also cares about accuracy as she completely constructs a replica of Coraline's yellow coat with buttons. The mother then gently lets the doll float away.

The use of a rag doll is clever, as dolls are already considered a trope of the horror genre. By also providing imagery of sharp objects and a twisted surgery, it plays on the audience's knowledge of horror enigma codes, to make them feel unsettled. As we know Coraline is the protagonist, and this doll is the first version of her we see, we are told this doll is a big factor in the story. Also, by knowing this, we are left to wonder about the fate of the girl who inspired the original look to the rag doll. Questions like these are never answered, making the audience feel even more unsettled.