Starring Kodi Smit-McPhee, Tucker Albrizzi, Anna Kendrick, Casey Affleck, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Leslie Mann, Jeff Garlin, Elaine Stritch, Bernard Hill, Jodelle Ferland, Tempestt Bledsoe, Alex Borstein, John Goodman
Directed by Chris Butler & Sam Fell
Expectations: Fairly low. I’m only watching this because my girlfriend talked me into it.
The older I get the more I don’t understand adults who like kids’ movies. Well, let me rephrase that. I don’t understand adults who like modern kids’ movies. If you have kids you get a pass because you’re going to see them anyway, so you might as well grow a taste for them. But I don’t have kids, so enjoying or even bothering with modern kids’ movies makes no sense to me. They’re clearly not for me, they’re for kids. So good riddance, and thanks but no thanks. But every once in a while, one comes around that even I can’t ignore, and ParaNorman is one of those films. And it’s a whole lot of fun no matter your age, especially if you enjoy horror films.
ParaNorman is about a kid named Norman (who woulda thought?) who can see ghosts. He’s labeled a freak by his classmates, and even his own father berates him on a regular basis. Norman, on the other hand, enjoys his gift, it’s just how everyone else reacts to it that gets him down. Funnily enough, Norman’s town has a history of persecuting those with a supernatural gift. There was once a witch who lived there, but the townspeople took care of her in the way that everyone took care of witches in the 18th century. And because this is a horror movie, the witch cursed the town and tonight’s the night that everything comes together for the curse’s realization.