For many of us, watching scary movies as kids is a memorable experience growing up. Staying up late on a Saturday night with the lights off, knowing full well what you were watching wasn’t very good, but it was scary anyway– and besides, mom and dad were asleep and couldn’t tell you to turn the channel. Well, “ParaNorman” offers a tribute to those cheesy late-night B-movie horror films that were produced in the 60’s and 70’s. It’s not the most original movie of the year but fortunately, the quirky animation more than makes up for the uninspiring script.
In the stop motion animated feature, “ParaNorman”, we are introduced to Norman Babcock, a seemingly normal 10 year-old kid who is obsessed with horror movies. There is one thing that is slightly off about Norman…he can communicate with dead people, more specifically ghosts. Everyone, including his parents, think he just too weird—okay so, maybe he isn’t exactly normal. As it is, Norman can’t go anywhere without seeing a spook for specter that is caught between this world and the next, including his own grandmother, who’s spirit sits on the sofa, knitting.
Norman (Kodi Smit-McPhee) lives in a small New England town, which thrives because of a witch’s curse that has been hanging over the town for over 200 years. It turns out, a long time ago, a witch was sentenced to death. As it usually goes, she cursed the town and promised one day she would return with a vengeance and raise the dead to get her revenge. As the anniversary approaches, Norman is approached by the town’s notorious crazy guy, who claims he too can speak to the dead and tells Norman it is his destiny to stop the witch.
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Norman learns each year, the witch tries to come back and up until now the town’s anointed protector has done nothing more than lure the witch back to sleep. He and his buddy, Neil (Tucker Albrizzi), find them selves on the run from zombies, who turn out to be the corpses of those who sentenced the witch to her death. They end up with Norman’s sister, Courtney (Anna Kendrick), and Neil’s brother, Mitch (Casey Affleck) fighting off zombies and trying desperately to find a way to stop the witch for good, rather than put it off for another year.
From the opening credits, “ParaNorman” plays like a horror movie from the 60’s. It’s a mix of scary and funny that is sure to creep kids out enough to make them wiggle but it’s goofy and silly enough that those chills won’t last through the laughs. The animation is top-notch. These are the guys that created “9” and the fantastically creepy “Coraline”. The 3D works well, too. It’s not too over-the-top but is effective in just the right places, especially when the witch and zombies start to wreak havoc.
The good news for both parents and kids is that despite the weak and less than original screenplay, the humor is solid from start to finish. It manages to be funny for all ages without resorting to burp and fart jokes, which far too many animated comedies seem to do—ahem, “Ice Age 4”. Yes, this is a kids’ movie that actually relies on some decent jokes, for a change.
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Plot wise, “ParaNorman” isn’t very original but the animation is amazingly weird and the humor is quirky enough that it makes up for the moments that don’t feel as fresh. But the cast is great and the jokes are actually funny. When it comes down to it, “ParaNorman” narrowly misses out on being the best animated movie of the year. If only the script was as much fun as the animation.
