Coraline is undoubtedly a film that has caused many nightmares because despite being a film for children, the film addresses extremely dark themes. However, although many people do not know it, the stop-riot film, directed by Henry Selick, was not only based on Neil Gaiman‘s novel, published in 2002, but is also inspired by a disturbing true story. So below we will reveal the chilling story behind the movie Coraline, which will surely leave you wishing you had never known it.
The real story behind Coraline
Coraline is a brilliantly creepy story for both children and adults, although according to Gaiman, it’s the adults who find it scariest. According to Neil, his novel was based on a popular, but mostly chilling, legend from his native Hampshire, United Kingdom. The story is about an old woman who took care of her newborn and orphaned granddaughter since her parents had died in a fire. The old woman overprotected the girl for fear of losing her, to such a degree that her neighbors had never seen the girl go out to play, which began to raise suspicions about her radical upbringing.
In view of this, several children organized to enter the mansion one night and meet the mysterious girl, but when the boys arrived they found no sign that any child lived in the house, other than an old crib. As they approached her, they discovered to their horror that there was a burned corpse of a baby with buttons sewn into her eye sockets. They quickly concluded that the girl had not survived the fire either, but her grandmother was clinging to her body in complete dementia.
After telling her parents, they had the old woman confined in a psychiatric hospital, but not before taking with them the doll in which the soul of her granddaughter lived. To this day, the terrifying story behind Coraline has not been confirmed, but neither has it been denied, so perhaps it will always remain a terrifying urban legend that will remind us how dark life can be.
This story was originally published in Spanish in Cultura Colectiva