In the world of animation , over the last 20 years or so, there has been an change of the guard. The release of “Toy Story” in 1995 began a trend in which CG animation slowly but inevitably supplanted all other methods of telling a story in animated form. Today, virtually all of the new animated films are CG, and there are only a handful of studios that are making them at any real level of quality. The result is that CG animated films have become a little stale. Even the films put out by companies with amazing track records have found themselves repeating themselves a bit. The interesting by-product of this is that smaller studios utilizing techniques that have fallen out of fashion with the “big boys” are producing far more interesting, more daring films. There is no better recent example than Laika, an animation studio in Hillsboro, Oregon, and the their stop-motion Horror/Comedy romp; PARANORMAN.
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Norman Babcock (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is a lonely 11 year old kid who can see and speak to the dead. Bullied by his peers and shunned by the adults in town, Norman is befriended by an overweight boy named Neil (Tucker Albrizzi), who is bullied himself for a list of quirks he is all too happy to list. As the two friends are heading home after rehearsing a school play about the town’s history of witch hysteria, the boys are accosted by Mr. Penderghast (John Goodman), the local deranged loony, and also Norman’s estranged Uncle. He tells Norman that the local legend of a witch’s curse is true and that Norman is the only one who can stop it from enacting. Norman tries, but fails to prevent the curse - causing a group of zombies to rise from their grave and terrify the townsfolk. It is up to Norman to find another way to stop the witch from destroying the town.
From the opening scene of Norman watching a low-budget horror movie with his grandmother, PARANORMAN is an animated film truly like no other. This is a film that takes real chances. Not only does it give us a premise that we haven’t seen in an animated film before, PARANORMAN does not shy away from giving us some genuinely scary imagery. In fact, the film proudly embraces its status as a fright-fest while at the same time skillfully retaining its friendliness to younger viewers. This is the first family-friendly Horror/Comedy that gets the balance exactly right. It is a fresh, funny, exciting, scary, and moving experience.
The stop motion animation serves this film far better than CG would have. PARANORMAN features characters that are highly stylized and grotesque - and that applies to the human characters as well as the monsters. Stop motion artists of today revel in the chance to invert reality - twisting their characters to their hearts’ content and telling truly unconventional stories. They are taking real chances with their storytelling. While Pixar/Disney and Dreamworks are welcome to continue to put out their CG comedies, it is always refreshing to return to what works, and the list of great stop motion animated films is beginning to grow long.
And PARANORMAN should be high on that list.
Parental Guide: Only small children should stay away. 8+
PARANORMAN fun facts -
This was the first animated film to use color 3D printers to create the different faces the puppets would require. This allowed for more rapid production and a greater varieties of facial expression.
The name of the town, Blithe Hollow, is inspired by the great ghost stories “Blithe Spirit“ and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow“.
Norman’s first glimpse of Mr. Penderghast is a reference to Laurie Strode‘s first glimpse of Michael Myers in “Halloween”.
There is a shot of Neil looking up at Norman’s bedroom window near the hanging laundry wearing a hockey mask. This is a mash-up reference to both “Halloween” and “Friday the 13th”. The shot is from “Halloween”, while the mask is “Friday the 13th”.
Courtney - “Mom, tell the zombie to stop saying stuff about me!”
Grandma - “There‘s nothing wrong with being scared, Norman, so long as you don‘t let it change who you are.”
Neil - “Can you see my dog, Bub? He was hit by an animal rescue van. Tragic… and ironic”