ParaNorman

ParaNorman

Dead good fun

Kids love being scared.  Whether it’s dark fairy tales, monsters, ghost trains or scary movies, there’s few pleasures sweeter than that delicious shiver of juvenile terror.  Why else did a generation grow up watching Doctor Who’s exploits from behind the sofa?  Yet it’s rare these days, when parents wrap their little darlings in cotton wool, for a kids movie to be scary.  So it’s refreshing that Chris Butler and Sam Fell’s ParaNorman, the new stop-motion film from animation studio Laika (makers of Coraline), sets out to be spooky, scary fun.

Every school has a weird kid and in the New England town of Blithe Hollow it’s 11-year-old Norman (Kodi Smit-McPhee).  We first meet Norman sat watching a zombie movie with his Grandma (Elaine Stritch).  The only problem is Grandma’s a ghost and only Norman can see her.  You see, Norman sees dead people and spends most of his day chatting with them, a habit that marks him out as an outcast and makes him the prime target for school bully Alvin (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) who makes his days a living hell.

But, as the town celebrates the 300^th anniversary of the local evil witch’s execution, Norman starts experiencing weird hallucinations, the ghost of his recently deceased uncle (John Goodman) appears to him in the school loo full of dire warnings and a plague of Puritan zombies is unleashed on the town.  The witch is out for revenge and as chaos engulfs Blithe Hollow, it’s up to Norman and an unlikely band of misfits to stop the witch’s ghost and save the town.

Drawing on the likes of The Goonies, The Monster Squad and Scooby Doo while subtly referencing some classic horror flicks (Night Of The Living Dead, The Evil Dead, Halloween, Friday The 13^th), ParaNorman is joyously creepy, knockabout fun.  Beautifully, painstakingly animated and incredibly detailed, it’s a classic outsider tale in which the weird kid saves the day.  It’s a kids movie which never patronises its young audience and unlike most big animation features never panders to the sensibilities of sensitive parents.  There’s some fantastic, gross-out, slapstick moments and some edge-of-the-seat action that’ll have kids screaming with delight and terror 

The performances are fun with Tucker Albrizzi as Norman’s chunky, endlessly optimistic friend Neil and Casey Affleck as Neil’s older, lunkhead brother Mitch both particularly good while Broadway veteran Elaine Stritch, John Goodman and Bernard Hill (as the zombie Puritan Judge) provide strong support.  But what sets ParaNorman apart is the genuine streak of melancholy at its heart.  The horrors Norman faces aren’t the ghosts he sees or the shambling zombies the witch unleashes; it’s the bullies who torment him, the sister who ignores him, the parents who don’t understand him.  Without being overly preachy, the film is a plea for tolerance, for understanding, to embrace the weird and the different and the final revelation of the witch’s identity and how she died is a stunning masterstroke.

Visually inventive, smart and funny, ParaNorman is a spooky pleasure that really should be coming out closer to Hallowe’en.      

David Watson

Directed by:

Chris Butler and Sam Fell

Written by:

Chris Butler

Produced by:

Travis Knight and Arianne Sutner

Starring:

Kodi Smit-McPhee, Anna Kendrick, Leslie Mann, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, John Goodman, Tucker Albrizzi, Casey Affleck, Jodelle Ferland, Elaine Stritch and Bernard Hill

Genres:

Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Fantasy, Horror

Language:

English

Runtime:

92 minutes

Certificate:

PG

Rating:

5/5

UK Release Date:

14^th of September 2012