Coraline: Steelbook Edition - 4K Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Coraline: Steelbook Edition



Movie:
4K Video:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
With Scream/Shout Factory re releasing a lot of their titles on 4K UHD we once again get to watch the movie that started it all for them. Their Toy Story so to speak. Back in 2009 stop motion animation had fallen by the wayside, but it once was a juggernaut in the film industry, giving rise to Jason and the Argonauts, much of Tim Burton’s older works, and countless others. But in 2009 it had been supplanted by CGI and other forms of animation. Not to be dissuaded the fledgling animation studio banked their success on recreating stop motion animation, just with modern day CGI technology. Thus Coraline was born, a creepy little Tim Burton-esque animated movie that put the studio on the map.

I watched Coraline back in 2010 when I got my Epson 1080p projector and remember being blown away by it. The movie was a prized film on Blu-ray back then, and I just stumbled across it in a pawn shop where I was given first dibs by the manager (at the time I was a regular deal hound there, so put aside stuff for me she knew I was after). Popping the disc in I was immediately drawn to the animation (though at the time it was a bit awkward. Laika hadn’t perfected their Stop Motion cloning in CGI form, so some items moved like traditional stop motion tech, and others seemed to move too smoothly at times) and the fact that it all felt like Tim Burton if Tim Burton wasn’t addicted to making everything gothic in his visual designs. The story was really disturbing if you looked at it closely, and doesn’t have the same fine tuning of story elements that Laika would come to perfect in films like The Boxtrolls or Kuba and the Two Strings, but it was fascinating to say the least. Horror, children’s movie, and cinematic visual treat all in one.

Based on Neil Gaiman’s 2002 novella of the same name, Coraline is a deceptively light story of a young girl named Coraline (Dakota Fanning, who sounds ridiculously like her younger Sister Elle here)who has just moved into a remote apartment “house” out in rural Oregon. She’s left her friends behind, her whole life behind, just so that her garden writer parents (played by Teri Hatcher and John Hodgman) could be closer to more vegetation in order to further their goals of a garden magazine. Given specific instructions to go explore the house and LEAVE THEM ALONE by her parents, Coraline sets out to find something to entertain herself. The kooky neighbors garner some mild interest, but she soon finds out that the house has a tiny door in the wall that has been wall papered over some years ago.

Finding the key to said door, Coraline finds a magical way in, and soon finds herself in an alternate universe, complete with clones of her parents, the house, and everything she ever knew, just better. Her “other parents” are loving and attentive instead of distant and pre-occupied, and everyone in the world just wants to entertain her, leading Coraline to wish that she’d never leave. However, all is not as it seems, as the stray cat on her side of reality can talk down here, and it’s soon revealed that the “other mother” is a trap. An evil monster who manipulates and controls events to lure unsuspecting children in and then steal away their life as she sucks them dry. Now it’s up to Coraline to figure a way out of the monster’s lair, and get back to her OWN reality, as boring as it may seem to her.

Coraline is a pretty simple story at heart. It’s a bedtime story of a monster in a hidden dimension, much like Hansel and Gretel, or a myriad of other creepy children’s fairy tales that we’ve known over the years. A sort of “be careful what you wish for” cautionary tale in children’s form. However, the story goes full blown horror (for younger viewers) in the latter half, bringing in some seriously creepy imagery and traumatic events that get softened just a bit by the children’s nature of the film. The bait and switch genre bump might be a problem if taken as just that, but the gorgeous animation and clever digital cinematography really do sell the thing. Coraline isn’t the best of the Laika animated films, nor is it the best Neil Gaiman adaptation either. It’s good, but really is brought to excellence due to the animation and ambiance of the whole thing.




Rating:

Rated PG for thematic elements, scary images, some language and suggestive humor




4K Video: Video:

According to Scream Factory, they went back and pulled a new 4K restoration for this upgrade (I have no idea if they just did a new 4K rescan, or actually RESTORED anything, but that’s what it says) and I have to say that the results are amazing. The film doesn’t have an animation style that will blow you out of the water in terms of razor sharp details, but the new 4K UHD disc looks really revealing and maximizes what you can see out of the textures and stop motion devices. Colors are really where this disc shines, as the HDR/DV really REALLY makes the film pop. The Blu-ray looks great still, but the rich blue of Coraline’s hair, or the red smoking jacket of her “fauxther” absolutely leaps off the screen in 2160p. Another big factor is that the minimal banding that was present in the night sky on the Blu-ray is completely eradicated and this looks as good as I could possibly hope for.







Audio:

Scream Factory has gone back and upgraded the 5.1 DTS-HD MA track found on the Blu-ray and remixed it for Dolby Atmos (unlike many of their live action 4K UHD releases, they didn’t repress the Blu-ray with the new master or audio track, it’s the same one from August of 2021), and the results are quite pleasing. Coraline had a drop dead perfect 5.1 DTS-HD MA mix, and this Atmos remixing is just a little more perfect. It takes the incredible core of the 5.1 mix and adds some life to it, with shifting overheads when the mother is in spider mode, or adding a sense of directional agility throughout the soundstage. The bass response appears to be pretty much identical, but I DID notice I needed a level boost from the 5.1 DTS-HD MA track to get the same base sound levels. No biggie, still a fantastic sounding movie.








Extras:

• Never-Before-Seen Coraline Animation Test Footage
• "Inside LAIKA Featurette"
• Foreword by Peter Debruge, Chief Film Critic for Variety
• Audio Commentary with Director Henry Selick and Composer Bruno Coulais
• The Making Of Coraline
• Original Featurettes
• Deleted Scenes
• Feature-Length Storyboards

Final Score: ​

I still stand by the fact that I think Coraline is the weakest of the original Laika studio productions (I STILL haven’t seen The Weakest Link) but still a great film to watch. It’s creepy, atmospheric, and a great take on a cautionary fairy tale/fantasy. The 4K UHD release is absolutely gorgeous in every way, with top notch video and audio, but of course the same Blu-ray extras that Shout released last august with their special edition Blu-ray (which is nothing to sneeze at). The 4K release not only releases in this special limited edition steelbook that Shout provided, but a regular packaged wide release as well (both contain the same discs, just the packaging is different), so buy whichever one your heart desires.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, John Hodgman, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French, Keith David
Directed by: Henry Selick
Written by: Henry Selick
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 HEVC
Audio: English: Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Core), French, Spanish DTS 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish
Studio: Shout Factory
Rated: PG
Runtime: 101 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: December 13th 2022

Recommendation: Fun Watch