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Stop-motion, like hand-drawn animation, is enjoying a sort of repressed popularity these days, thanks in part to the massive popularity of CG animation and the rise of 3-D. But that doesn't mean that the art form will be relegated to the archives of the film industry anytime soon – stop-motion still has many advocates, such as Henry Selick, the man behind 1996's “A Nightmare Before Christmas.”

This year, Selick comes out with “Coraline,” a story that shares many of “A Nightmare Before Christmas's” dark, creepy undertones. While it doesn't mean to pass off as a horror film, it manages to bring a cheery, fearful quality that many of Selick's fans will love.

Distributed by Focus Features, “Coraline” is named after the story's protagonist, a young girl who moves into a new, creepy house with her parents. At first the expansive house and the vast yards around it gives Coraline a lot of opportunities to explore, but she soon becomes bored of it all – until she discovers a strange door in the house that leads her into the “otherworld,” a parallel universe where everything seems perfect. Her parents are in the otherworld as well, but seemingly without the flaws that her real parents have. What Coraline doesn't know is that “Other Dad” and “Other Mom” have their own hidden agenda...

View the Coraline trailer below:

One of the reasons why stop-motion isn't as popular now than before is because it's one of the most painstaking art forms to use for filmmaking. Selick and the guys from the northwestern animation production group LAIKA could come up with only 60 to 100 seconds of animation in a typical week. Do the math and see how long it would take to come up with a movie-length feature.

Still, it's great to see that stop-motion is still kept alive by people with such a passion for it. Besides, the medium used for telling the story – be it stop-motion, CG, or hand-drawn animation – should only come second to the story itself. And Coraline has both the plot and the animation quality that should give audiences, both young and old, an entertaining show.

It's interesting to see how alternative art forms are making their way into the film industry recently (although “alternative” is a relative term, as majority of today's animated films are computer-generated, though this obviously wasn't always the case). Last year I wrote an article about Ponyo, a Japanese animated film that used – of all things – pencils and crayons for its art medium. It goes to show that a great story will definitely shine through any sort of medium used.

Now I'd like to see the guys at Disney try to revive the old-school, hand-drawn animation styles. If anyone can do it, they can. And they should.