The notion of a kiddie horror film may seem or sound like a weird mix, but any moviegoer of appreciable devotion can surely recall a film from their early adolescence that got under their skin a bit in a good way, providing a cathartic jolt. Mostly funny but also plenty scary for the elementary school set, the new 3-D animated adventure ParaNorman, from the makers of Coraline, fits that bill.
A kind of inventive and visually engaging melange of the aforementioned flick, Monster House and A Nightmare Before Christmas, ParaNorman unfolds in the town of Blithe Hollow, whose locals profit from tourism mining the town’s history as the site of a famous witch hunt 300 years earlier. For 11-year-old Norman Babcock (voiced by Kodi Smit-McPhee), though, ghost lore and other spookiness isn’t just part of some dusty old history book — he still sees his deceased grandmother (voiced by Elaine Stritch), as well as all other manner of dead people.
This flusters his father Perry (voiced by Jeff Garlin) to no end, but when Norman’s black sheep uncle (voiced by John Goodman) unloads on him the responsibility of halting a centuries-old witch’s curse from coming true, the requisite race-against-time unfolds, with a pack of risen zombies unleashed upon the town. Caught up in the mix alongside Norman are amiable and impressionable classmate Neil (voiced by Tucker Albrizzi); thick-headed bully Alvin (voiced by Christopher Mintz-Plasse); his perpetually exasperated older sister, Courtney (voiced by Anna Kendrick); and Mitch (voiced by Casey Affleck), the school quarterback on whom she nurses a none-too-secret crush.
The film’s exacting stop-motion animation has a fabulous and inviting tactile quality, a bit like The Fantastic Mr. Fox. One wants to reach out and touch the characters, and tumble headlong into their world. Director Sam Fell oversees a funky style, too, with great imagination to the movie’s framing. And with his bacon strip eyebrows, Bart Simpson-esque spiky hair and melancholic, crushed-confidence vocal timbre, Norman cuts a sympathetic figure.
The plot bogs down a bit as the movie shifts gears into its second and third acts — the audience is on the outside looking in on the specifics of Norman’s quest, much like the character himself. A bit more clarity and early revelation here wouldn’t have hurt. And the supporting players — cheerleader, himbo jock, bully and chubby geek — are more functional than deeply sketched, and deployed in a manner that doesn’t really add much, in either assistance or obstacle, to Norman’s journey. But Chris Butler’s script knows how to push the right buttons of squirmy gross-out and slapstick comedy, and features plenty of winning set-ups and jokes.
In its own small way, ParaNorman is also a product of its time, and a salvo against sociocultural nastiness. While it focuses on a misunderstood kid, and again preaches a familiar strain of diversity appreciation and inclusiveness, its parallel moral — indeed, even stated outright by Norman’s mother at one point — is that when people get scared, they’re apt to do terrible and stupid things. It’s not too much of a leap to assign that description to our current political climate. (Focus/Laika, PG, 100 minutes)