ParaNorman (2012) voices Kodi Smit-McPhee, Tucker Albrizzi, Anna Kendrick, Casey Affleck, Christopher Mintz-Plasse directed by Chris Butler, Sam Fell Movie Review

ParaNorman (2012)   3/53/53/53/53/5


ParaNorman (2012)

When You're Strange

Norman is a lonely kid; at school he is picked on for being a freak and at home his family just don't understand him. The trouble stems from Norman saying he can see and speak to dead people including his own grandma and everyone in the town of Blithe Hollow thinks he is weird for claiming this. That is until an ancient curse comes around and suddenly the streets of Blithe Hollow come under attack from zombies, witches and ghouls with Norman being the only one who can talk to them to restore order. The question is who is the real threat, the zombies and ghouls or the local residents who gather with lit torches.

When it comes to animations I usually say stuff like; if I was a child I am pretty sure I would enjoy it, but when it comes to "ParaNorman" I'm not sure that I would. Okay so visually I would have been captivated as the stop motion animation filmed in 3D would have wowed me and in fact as an adult it is hard not to appreciate it visually with lots of nice touches which in truth you might miss on the first time of watching.

But then there is the storyline and unfortunately I was surprisingly bored because turning a zombie movie into a kid's movie just doesn't work. But it is not just that as the horror movie references only work for those who have watched the movies it references from an opening scene which has that old late night horror look to having the town named Blithe Hollow. Some references are a lot easier to get than others such as the neighbour's kid in a hockey mask but in many ways "ParaNorman" feels like an animation aimed at horror fans but done as if they could be children again rather than for children now.

What this all boils down to is that "ParaNorman" whilst visually impressive didn't wow me like it has others and unless you are a big horror fan I don't think the movie fully works because without the horror knowledge you won't get the references.


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