- Coraline. Directed by Henry Selick. Featuring Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher and John Hodgman.

Rating: 8 (out of 10)

Parents, forget the child care books. If you want obedient, grateful children, look no further than the movie theatre and Coraline: the 3-D film will delight, terrify and serve as a potent cautionary tale for bored children.

Coraline has a perfect pedigree: it's directed by Henry Selick, the mastermind behind James and The Giant Peach, Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas and the creatively manic Monkeybone.

Inspired by Neil Gaiman's dark fairy tale, Coraline is brought to life onscreen like a 3-D Sgt. Pepper album, complete with singing carnivorous plants, performing mice, and a technicolour tunnel to an alternate universe.

Coraline (voiced with pep by Dakota Fanning) moves from Michigan with her parents to the Pink Palace Apartments, a drafty house in the middle of nowhere. The remote locale suits her parents (Teri Hatcher and John Hodgman), both writers, but Coraline is going squirrelly. Her folks don't play with her; they cook slop; they rarely stock the fridge. They write about gardening but never set foot outside, much to Coraline's dismay. "Your dad cooks, I clean, and you stay out of the way," says Mom.

At first she's fascinated by the house's other bizzaro tenants, which include a Russian acrobat named Bobinski (Ian McShane) and two geriatric ex-Burlesque queens called Spink and Forcible (the fab Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders). Bobinski is training a mouse circus; the ladies have rows of their ex-Scottie dogs stuffed on a shelf.

Coraline is less interested in Wybie (Robert Bailey Jr.), the landlord's meddling grandson, who lives up the hill but comes down to hunt banana slugs from time to time. He's been warned not to go inside the house. It's Wybie who gives Coraline the doll he found, a doll with blue hair and pencil-thin legs, just like Coraline. But the doll has buttons for eyes.

One day Coraline discovers a little door, wallpapered shut and locked. The skeleton key is easily found, and after passing through a glowing tunnel (the 3D highlight of the film) Coraline is transported to a mirror image of her apartment. Her mom and dad are there too, kind of. They sound and look the same but they have button eyes. Other Mother cooks delicious meals, and Other Father listens to what Coraline has to say. Before tucking her into her fantasy bedroom, they tell Coraline she can stay forever, if she wants.

She wakes up in her own bed, but can't resist going back to her other family, where everything -- the gardens, the neighbours, too -- is more fun. But can she get back? The only one seemingly aware of the alternate universe is a scabby cat (Keith David) who warns Coraline to stay away.

Coraline's dream turns into a fully fledged junior nightmare, with more tension than many of the grown-up horror stories out there. A clever score, featuring an eerie French lullaby, highlights the underlying sense of doom.

There's no substitute for the depth and detail of Selick's stop-motion animation, especially in Coraline's technicolour nightmare. Needless to say, the best way to enjoy the creepy delights of Coraline is on the big screen. Don't wait for DVD.

And leave younger kids at home: they might overlook the nuances of a risqu? burlesque show, but they won't miss Other Mother's terrifying transformation, she who all but screams the film's moral: "Listen to your mother, or she'll needle you to death."