Film: ParaNorman

It seems weird that Frankenweenie and ParaNorman have been released around the same time. Both are stop motion movies centering around death. Both have an old fashioned horror feel, although ParaNorman is 1970s horror movie while Frankenweenie is more black and white Hammer horror. Both also feel like they're missing a little something.

In ParaNorman, Norman has the gift to talk to the dead; seeing ghosts everywhere he goes; ostracising him from the other kids at school. Around the anniversary of a witch's death he begins to get visions of his hometown on fire and the witch's trial; leading to the witch's curse being activated which includes zombies being raised from the dead. Norman joins together with some horror movie stereotypes - the jock, the cheerleader, the bully, the fat one; think the only thing missing is the black guy who dies first - to stop the witch's curse and save his town from destruction.

Norman (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is a quiet, reserved character who other than being rather nice has very little in the way of a personality. The other characters provide most of the comedy while he just sits there being serious.

The stop-motion is relatively well done but the animation style is quite strange and its very obvious that you're watching a stop-motion film throughout. Some characters look very peculiar, particularly the Jock character who has a massive upper body and chicken legs. However, the zombies look very impressive; stop-motion allowing for the creation of truly grotesque creatures which wouldn't be possible with live action.

While at first it seems like your standard horror the film does have some twists, such as the true nature of the witch's curse. Some of these twists you could probably guess beforehand, such as the one surrounding who the witch is; but it doesn't stop it from being any less heartbreaking. Like Coraline before it (they're made by the same studio) ParaNorman isn't afraid to shy away from topics which might be upsetting for children, namely stating that children sometimes die; something which many films don't acknowledge.

Also of note is that this is possibly the first children's film to feature an openly gay character, although this isn't stated until the end of the film and it's in a throw away joke line. It's still significant for acknowledging gay people, establishing that they are part of the community. It's the little touches like this that ultimately make ParaNorman stand out from the other children's films around.