‘Coraline’ is a scary study for kids and adults

Above: The animated feature "Coraline" will screen twice on Tuesday. (Photo/Focus Features)  

It’s a bit early for Halloween – two and a half months early – but since when did those doing marketing worry about anything but delivering advance news.

Kind of like Christmas ads coming at us before we even celebrate Thanksgiving.

Anticipating the sale of Halloween candy must be why the 2009 animated film “Coraline” will be screening on Tuesday at both Regal Cinemas theaters at Northtown Mall and Coeur d’Alene’s Riverstone Stadium.

The screenings will be at 3 and 7 p.m.

“Coraline,” which was directed by Henry Selick and based on the 2002 novel by Neil Gaiman, tells the story of an unpleasant little girl (voiced by Dakota Fanning) who seeks out a set of alternative parents. And if ever there was a story about being careful about what you wish for, it’s this one.

Imagine having buttons sewn on where your eyes now sit.

The late Roger Ebert wrote this: “I admire the film mostly because it is good to look at. Selick is as unconventional in his imagery as Gaiman is in his writing, and this is a movie for people who know and care about drawing, caricature, grotesquerie and the far shores of storytelling.”

Then writing for Salon.com, critic Stephanie Zacharek wrote, “Selick – the director of ‘Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas,’ as well as the charming 1996 Roald Dahl adaptation ‘James and the Giant Peach’ and the raucous grown-up fantasy ‘Monkeybone’ – knows how to impart a sense of delight and wonder to even the spooky stuff. In "Coraline," the creepiest moments and images are also among the most seductively beautiful.”

Writing for the New York Daily News, Elizabeth Weitzman was a bit less complimentary: “An extraordinary achievement that nevertheless falls short of its full potential, ‘Coraline’ is absolutely worth seeing, for older children and adults alike.”

A movie for kids and adults? That’s kind of like Halloween itself.