Autumn has fallen and it’s time once more to celebrate the primal, compulsive instinct of fear. Rainestorm finishes its horror trilogy and goes to the well one last time to highlight 31 days of spooky scares that season the eerie atmosphere of Halloween.

Hex cast: 2009

The charm: Free of Tim Burton’s shackles, director Henry Selick spins a marvelous adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s book that is a visual banquet, with superb supporting characters that do double duty in two separate dimensions, or more if you count 3D. This is one of the few movies I wish I had seen in the otherwise worthless format. When neglected pre-teen Coraline finds a mysterious door that leads to another world, she finds seemingly warmer, more caring versions of her parents named Other Mother and Other Father, who strangely have buttons sewn in place of their eyes. Things only get darker from there. For a children’s movie this is startlingly disturbing. Like the best horror movies, it takes you down frightening roads before teasing you with a dose of safety, then hauling you back into the darkness again. Coraline is a plucky heroine who is not easily unsettled. She takes the oddities of the other world in stride. She is the prototypical feminist heroine: a bit naive, sometimes selfish, occasionally reckless. When things get dire, she doubles down and perseveres. The supporting characters are a colorful bunch of eccentrics who have their own nightmarish personalities on the other side. The animation is superb and the wonderful vocal cast – especially Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French, Ian McShane, and Keith David – deliver fine performances.

Focal point: The terrifying showdown between Coraline and the Other Mother’s monstrous true form.

Entrancing trivia: This is the first stop-motion animated feature to be shot entirely in 3-D.

Speak the words: “I thought you’d like him more if he talked a little less. So I fixed him.”

Companion spell: ParaNorman (2012). Henry Selick once again delivers a scary little delight with a production design that is perfectly suited for Halloween shenanigans.

Cursed by: Short as it is, it goes on a bit longer than is necessary.