Is Coraline Based on a True Story?

The 2009 stop-motion animated film Coraline is a modern horror classic and the first feature film produced by the award-winning studio Laika. If you’re wondering whether Coraline is based on a true story, though, here’s what you need to know.

Is Coraline Based on a True Story?

The movie Coraline is based on the children’s novella of the same name by prolific British author Neil Gaiman, first published in 2002, with the cinematic adaptation written and directed by Henry Selick, director of The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and Giant Peach. In developing the novella, Gaiman drew from both literary inspirations and an amusing anecdote from his own domestic life while intermittently writing the story. However, neither of these sources are based on real-life incidents but rather stand as other fictional stories themselves.

The most apparent influence on the creation of Coraline was the Victorian era short story “The New Mother,” written by Lucy Clifford and published in her 1882 short story collection The Anyhow Stories, Moral and Otherwise. The story follows two sisters who are encouraged by a strange girl they meet to misbehave, prompting their mother to leave and be replaced by a cruel, new mother. The story was adapted by author Alvin Schwartz for the 1984 second volume of his short horror story anthology Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.

Another inspiration Gaiman has cited in creating Coraline was his own daughter Holly, when she was only four years-old. Gaiman recounts that Holly developed a story of her mother being replaced by an evil witch, with her protagonist aided by ghosts to defeat her. This significantly parallels both the literary and cinematic versions of Coraline, particularly the idea of the protagonist teaming up with ghost children to defeat the story’s villain. With these inspirations in hand, Gaiman was able to craft the modern classic that we enjoy today.