One of the Halloween seasons’ most beloved movies of all time is the 2009 movie”Coraline,” produced by Laika Studios and directed by Henry Selick. Most people who like the movie also know it was originally a children’s book written by Neil Gaiman. I have read and watched “Coraline” countless times and it’s one of my absolute favorites both as a movie and book, so I am going to rank both of them on the scales of scariness, characters, and overall re-watch/re-readability, and talk about which one wins. 

When it comes to which version is scarier, the point easily goes to the book. The lines the character says in the book are much more ominous than the ones in “Coraline,” and there’s a lot more scary details–such as when Coraline asks if the Other Mother’s mother has a grave, to which she replies “I put her in there myself. And when I found her trying to crawl out, I put her back,” or when the rats sing prophecies to Coraline in her dreams, or when she has to run from the deformed version of the Other Father. All of those examples combined are enough to put the novel over the movie in terms of scariness. 

One of the things that immediately puts the movie above the book, personally, is that the characters in the movie are much more colorful. Although the book characters say a lot of interesting things, they didn’t become as endeared to me as the movie versions did. Most of all, Wybie isn’t a character in the book at all, which is enough reason to say the point for the characters goes to the movie.

In our tie-breaker, we have to consider the chances of which version will always have people coming back for more. Once again, the movie wins. It goes without saying the visuals are absolutely stunning, the music is perfect, and the ambience it creates when viewers watch it is absolutely unbeatable. 

A final interesting difference is that the setting for the versions is different, with the book taking place in Britain, where author Gaiman is from, but the movie is set in Ashland, Oregon, most likely due to the fact that Laika Studios is located in Oregon, as well!

Although I love both the book and movie to pieces, the movie does win under these categories, two categories to one. I love them both equally, but the one thing I can say with full confidence is that, personally, I’m partial to the gloomy Oregonian fall, and I hope everyone enjoys theirs.