Neil Gaiman's popular childrens’ book, Coraline, the tale of a girl who goes through a door into a parallel but creepified world, has been brought to the big screen by Nightmare Before Christmas director Henry Selick. It’s a great convergence of talents, with the lurid blackness of Selick’s stop-motion animation giving form to Gaiman’s twisted vision. That said, the story has acquired a more stridently moralizing tone under Selick: the emphasis is on growing up and forsaking childish dreams; about being realistic in what you expect from life and your parents. In the process, some of the excitement of the book’s celebration of independence, guts and curiosity is lost.

And Selick departs from Gaiman in stressing the importance of friendship, introducing a new character, a boy, to befriend the determinedly independent, sassy Coraline (the brilliantly attitudinal Dakota Fanning).