After a summer which included extravagant animated movies released through mostly big studios, that made large sums of money but for some reason had left audiences unfulfilled. Now as summer is coming to a close, those same audiences can feel some relief when they go see “Paranorman.”
After being released into theaters a little over two weeks ago in August it has received positive reviews, as it honestly deserves being one of the best movies of the year. The movie is categorized as an animated, horror, comedy, which suits it well since it is a very funny movie, and does include some scary parts even for grown-ups.
The studio Laika Inc. produced the film, which is the same production company that did “Coraline” back in 2009. Those who saw “Coraline” can easily tell it also has a creepy feel to it, “Paranorman” is way better though.
The movie takes place in Blithe Hollow, Massachusetts a town filled with tall tales of a witch being hanged and the town’s people being cursed to come back as the living dead.  They never expected that the tale was real but since that it is; only Norman Babcock can save them.
Norman is an outcast who nobody likes, only because they don’t believe that he can actually talk to ghosts like he says. Norman learns from his estranged uncle that it’s up to him to keep the witch asleep by reading her a story
Norman fails to locate the witch’s tomb which results in the one judge and the six jurors that convicted the witch to return from the dead as zombies. Norman along with sister, friend Neil, the neighborhood jock and bully, he is able to save the town from the witches curse.
Just about every part that Neil is in is funny. A memorable scene is an exchange between Neil and the bully, Neil is told by the bully to move or else will punch him in his boobs to which Neil says they are “pecks not boobs.” Once the bully punches him Neil cries out ouch my boobs! During this scene the every audience member cracked up.
So get out there and go watch this awesome movie it will heal the wounds left by the futile early summer animated movies. In addition to great 3D stop-motion animation, it is comprised of a tremendous voice cast; including Casey Affleck, Jeff Garlin, Leslie Mann and Christopher Charles Mintz-Plasse. In addition the film’s score is amazingly done by the legendary Jon Brion, who has done the scores of such films such as “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and “Step Brothers.”
Lastly “Paranorman” is great for all ages as it teaches several deep morals like don’t judge a book by its cover, but it does so in a such a clever way it is simply fantastic.