Film Genres of Coraline

Traditional methods to classify film genres were based on specific formula of semantics and syntactic which film makers abided to strictly. Semantics include the visual aspects of the film while syntactic surround the content of the film. Categorising films are widely practiced in the film industry to target specific audiences to guarantee high ratings. Films are categorised as a guarantee to meet audiences’ expectations. For example, people choose to watch comedy because they are expecting funny jokes and humouring content. Therefore, film genres set audiences’ expectations towards films. However, the evolvement of the film industry and film production process in relation to societal advancement, films are breaking away from the boundaries of genres.  The creativity of film makers has resulted in the increasing complexity of film.  The purpose of the review is to show the advancement and evolvement of film in terms of manipulating their visual and story content to target a widespread audience by combing aspects various genres.  A good example to study is the 2009 film entitled Coraline. It is a movie that reflects the advancement of visual editing techniques and content creativity by combining aspects of certain film genres.

Genres defines as the categorisation of films. Coraline combines film genres such as fantasy, adventure, horror, action and comedy. Coraline breaks the stereotype of animation targeting children by creating a 3- Dimensional dark-fantasy animation that requires parental guidance. The first film genre included in the film is fantasy film which defines as films containing imaginative and dream-like content (Fantasy Films, n.d.).  Secondly, the film is also an adventure film that uses characters physical actions to explain the storyline.  The film included aspects of horror film as certain scenes elicited a physiological response through body and supernatural horror. Collins English Dictionary (n.d.) defined body horror as physical harm done towards body parts ; supernatural horror defined as ghosts and fictional monsters causing threat towards normalcy. In addition, action aspects of the film added to the cathartic experience by including a chase scene. Despite being a dark animation, the film managed to include comedic aspects categorised under comedy films designed to amuse the audience with humorous content (Comedy Films, n.d.).

The film “Coraline” is about a girl named Coraline Jones constantly finding herself being bored and seeking adventure after moving to the Pink Palace Apartments from Michigan. One day, she found a mysterious tiny door that apparently was a magical channel that lead to an alternate universe. She found herself being happy there as she had parents who showed her affection and a best friend, Wybie who could not talk. It was a playoff of the negatives in her real life except the characters had buttons for eyes. When her “Other Mother” wanted her to stay forever by going to extreme lengths, she found herself having to maneuverer herself out of the Other Mother’s traps to rescue her real-life parents.

Coraline is a representation of how the creativity of film makers has managed to overlap film genres into one film. The film is mainly a dark-fantasy film as the entire film surrounded the idea of an alternate magical universe that was connected to reality through a magical tunnel. The garden of the alternate universe also had plants and animals that were surreal.  One of the main character was the Other Mother which was actually an evil spider. Secondly, the concept that classified the film under horror was the characters of the alternate universe having buttons for eyes which classifies under body horror. The characters of three ghost children and the scenes where they warned Coraline of Other Mother’s evil doings as well as asking for her help to set them free showcased aspects of supernatural horror. Some editing aspects of horror films were also applied into the making of the film such as jump cuts to startle the audience. This technique was applied during the scene where Coraline was trying to take the second eye from the Other Miss Spink and Forcible where they popped out of their cocoon to stop Coraline from taking the eyes. Chiaroscuro lighting also known as low key lighting was used in the film to further enhance the eerie and gory atmosphere. The overall design and setting of the film was dim and dark to portray the fact that it was a dark-fantasy animation with horrific content. The film overlaps with action films in terms of categorisation as it possessed similar aspects to that of action films. For instance, there was an extended and exaggerated chase scene between the Other Mother and Coraline after she threw the cat at the Other’s Mother’s face. The cat ended up ripping off the Other Mother’s eyes which lead to a thrilling chase scene. To further illustrate, the Other Mother chased Coraline up her spider web, stopped Coraline from closing the magical tunnel’s door and even her decapitated hand chased Coraline till the scene at the well. To compliment with serious and horrific scenes, the film makers of Coraline included dark humour in the film through cold jokes and eccentric characters. This can be illustrated through Coraline mocking Wybie of his name as “Why were you born?”. The joke was an insult to his character of being annoying. Comedic aspects are also portrayed through the characters such as the Other Miss Spink and Forcible who were exaggeratedly voluptuous bimbos as well as Bobinsky who was disproportionate and crazy circus performer. The characters odd and clumsy behaviours were the humourous content in the film.

Conclusively, there is no fixed method to classify films into their genres. The creativity of film makers has also made it more difficult to so. By including aspects of each film genre, film makers are now able to target widespread audiences. The evolution of film production had connected audiences to further appreciate the art of film. Coraline is an awesome example to prove how film making has evolved in terms of showcasing the overlapping of film genres.