Random Small But Chilling Details In 'Coraline' (17 items)

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  (#1) The 'Welcome Home' Cake Proves The Beldam Is Lying

  While the "Welcome Home" cake the Beldam makes for Coraline looks delicious (especially for being made out of plasticine), the piping on top may hold a clue about the Beldam's true intentions.

  According to Redditor u/philo-soph-y:

  The “welcome home” cake features a double loop on the O. According to Graphology, a double loop on a lowercase O means that the person who wrote it is lying. There is only one double loop, meaning she is welcome but she is not home.
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  (#2) The Beldam's Shadow Shows Her True Self

  The Beldam ensures nearly everything in the Other World is perfectly suited to Coraline's tastes, but she apparently can't control the shadows on the wall.

  As pointed out by Redditor u/EatASnickrz:

  The first night after [Coraline] meets the other parents and goes to sleep, you will see the other mother's shadow as her real self, while the other dad has none.
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  (#3) Mr. Bobinsky's Medal And Blue Skin Point To His Dark Past

  On the surface, Mr. Bobinsky appears to be an eccentric but harmless dilettante with a penchant for mice. His noticeably blue skin may simply seem like a design choice, but the medal he wears pinned to his shirt hints at a darker explanation.

  The distinctive emblem is a real medal given to the "Chernobyl liquidators," those who helped clean up the site of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. If Bobinsky helped with radiation cleanup, this could explain his abnormally colored skin - it may be a byproduct of prolonged radiation exposure.
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  (#4) A Hand-Shaped Lightning Bolt Signals The Beldam's Evil Scheme

  One blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment comes when the Beldam tries to convince Coraline to play a game. When the button-eyed matriarch suggests hide-and-seek in the rain, Coraline asks, "What rain?" just before a lightning bolt cuts through the sky outside the window. 

  If paused at just the right moment, the lightning bolt appears in the shape of the Beldam's clawlike hand, demonstrating just how tight her grip on Coraline and the Other World really is.
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  (#5) The Years On The Candy Jars May Connect To The Ghost Children

  When Coraline returns to Spink and Forcible's apartment in the real world after rejecting the Beldam's offer to have buttons sewn into her eyes, Ms. Forcible opens a trunk marked "Special Reserve" to reveal three vintage bowls of taffy. Ms. Spink then uses her knitting needles to dig out the seeing stone from one of the bowls.

  Each bowl is labeled with a year: 1921, 1936, and 1960. Fans surmise that these years - and, by extension, the taffy bowls - correspond to the years in which the three ghost children first went missing. By this logic, the bowl of taffy that Ms. Forcible brings Coraline to accompany her tea during her first visit would have been added to the trunk and labeled "2009" (the year the film was released) if Coraline had accepted the Beldam's offer. 
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  (#6) The Silhouetted Portraits In The Dining Room Could Be The Ghost Children

  In the dining room of the Other Mother's house hang three silhouetted portraits of children. These more than likely represent the ghost children, the Beldam's previous victims whose spirits are still trapped inside a dark, hidden room in the Other Pink Palace. 

  Had Coraline accepted the Beldam's offer, she likely would have appeared as a fourth silhouette on the wall. 
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  (#7) The Scenery Gives The Beldam Devilish Horns

  Before the Beldam transitions into her horrifying needle-spider form, the movie's setting drops several subtle hints that she may not be as benevolent as she seems.

  In several scenes, the decorations in the house - namely a mounted animal head and the pincers of her insect furniture - are placed behind her in just such a way so that she appears to have pointed, devilish horns.
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  (#8) The Secret Well Doubles As A Fairy Ring

  When Coraline first explores the grounds of the Pink Palace, she embarks on a hunt to find a secret well. She unknowingly steps right on top of it, although the spot is already marked out with a ring of small, orange mushrooms.

  This circle may be a fairy ring, a folkloric symbol that indicates fairies frequent the land. According to legend, these rings can be very dangerous to anyone who disturbs or steps inside of them, just as Coraline does. Some claim trespassing inside fairy territory could result in anything from bad luck to a curse, which may explain the mysterious and frightening events that occur after Coraline accidentally ventures inside the ring.
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  (#9) The Beetle Wallpaper Hints At The Beldam's True Identity

  The Pink Palace is an enchanting vintage estate, but it's a bit run down when Coraline and her parents arrive. There are bugs in the shower, dirty water in the taps, and faulty wiring that shuts off the entire apartment's power with the press of a button.

  But one element of the antique house actually hints at the horrors on the other side of the mysterious little door: The wallpaper in the living room is covered in beetle shapes that blend into the otherwise-subtle floral design. While the Beldam herself is an arachnid made of needles, many of her minions are beetles, and this detail may make you wonder just how many eyes she has on the Jones family. 
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  (#10) The Beldam Straightens Mel's Crooked Nose

  The Beldam strives to make everything perfect for Coraline in the Other World, from delicious three-course meals to a custom-made sweater ensemble to the neighbor she "fixes" so he can't speak. Even the tiniest details are altered to perfection, and some of these may fly under the radar. 

  According to Redditor u/UniqueBrowser:

  The other mother makes her idea of a "perfect identical world" for Coraline. This also includes such fine details as fixing her real mother's crooked nose.
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  (#11) Other Spink And Other Forcible's Performance Hints At The Film's Deeper Theme

  In one particularly memorable scene, Other Spink and Other Forcible perform a mesmerizing trapeze act for Coraline, Other Wybie, and their denizens of button-eyed Scottie dogs. During their performance, they recite a monologue from Hamlet:

  What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world. The paragon of animals.

  While this speech is never explained in the film, the Shakespearean tie-in may hint at some deeper themes.

  On the surface, the monologue may be a reference to the film's setting: Coraline takes place in Ashland, OR, a town known for its annual Shakespeare festival (an event also referenced when the Joneses drive into town). Thematically, however, the use of Hamlet's monologue, which dissects the human condition, may allude to the Beldam's need to fabricate an ideal reality for her victims. Although she herself isn't human, she must understand human psychology and people's desires in order to make her trap as alluring as possible.

  The film may also relate to Hamlet in its themes of family ties, deception, and responsibility, among other things.
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  (#12) Jack Skellington Is Hiding In An Egg Yolk

  Fans of stop-motion animation may appreciate this hidden reference to one of director Henry Selick's other films. When the Beldam cracks an egg to make an omelet for Coraline, the yolk briefly appears as the face of Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas, another Selick-directed feature.

  Within the context of the movie, this detail may even be read as a harbinger of the Beldam's malevolence and deteriorating form. During the scene in question, she is taller and more skeletal than her original "Other Mother" form, but later in the film, she transforms even further into a terrifying needle-spider.
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  (#13) The Pattern On Coraline's Chair May Be A Reference To 'The Shining'

  Coraline is about as close to a horror movie as a children's film can get, but it may contain a reference to one of the most well-known horror movies ever made.

  YouTuber CZsWorld points out that the back of the chair where Coraline's doll sits features a small, flower-shaped pattern. This small design is nearly identical to the one on the back of Jack Torrance's chair in The Shining, seen during one of his "all work and no play" writing sessions.
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  (#14) Coraline's Praying Mantis Frame Foreshadows The Giant Mantis In The Garden

  The Beldam specially designed the Other World to contain all of Coraline's favorite things. Many of her toys and trinkets seen in the beginning of the film return as magical creatures in the Other World, most notably her praying mantis picture frame, which later becomes the gigantic mantis the Other Father rides through the garden.

  Other toys that are upgraded for the Other World include a turtle shell, some paper dragonflies, and a stuffed blue squid.
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  (#15) Mr. Bobinsky's Apartment Mirrors His Circus In The Other World

  Many of the marvels that appear in the Other World are foreshadowed in the beginning of the film. One of these is Mr. Bobinsky's circus, the seeds of which can be seen when Coraline opens the door to his attic apartment. 

  A lamp draped with a sheet creates the illusion of a circus tent, while the hen standing on a stack of boxes hints at the innovative popcorn machine that appears in the Other World.
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  (#16) Spink And Forcible's Furniture Foreshadows Their Theater Show

  One subtle allusion to Spink and Forcible's bombastic upcoming performance in the Other World appears when Coraline first visits their basement apartment.

  While the space is decked out with twinkling lights, vintage burlesque posters, and even a door knocker featuring the infamous comedy and tragedy masks, three fold-down theater seats in their living room provide a more understated reference to the theatrical performance to come. 
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  (#17) A Photo Proves That Coraline Had Brown Hair Before The Move

  Coraline's distinctive blue hair is only mentioned once in the film, namely when she lists the similarities between herself and the mysterious doppelgänger doll Wybie brings her from his grandmother's trunk. While the audience can assume her hair is dyed, since her father's hair is brown and her mother's is black, a family photo in her parents' bedroom gives us a glimpse at pre-dye Coraline.

  The picture, taken at the Detroit Zoo where they bought the infamous snow globe, shows a younger-looking Coraline with brown hair. Some fans have theorized that Coraline's parents may have let her dye her hair blue to make up for their move to Oregon.

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