This autumn sees the release of PARANORMAN, and in order to build anticipation Focus Features have released a series of newsletters from the film’s fictional town Blithe Hollow. Kodi Smit-McPhee provides the voice of Norman Babcock, a young boy that can talk to the dead. With his skills he must try and save his town from ghosts, witches, and zombies.
The newsletters do an excellent job of building this unfamiliar world. It sets the tone of a small town with an isolated community with superstitious residents. Norman Babcock is set up as one of those boys whose wild imagination is looked down upon. It also displays the film’s rather dark sense of humour. In one excerpt Norman’s sister writes in about how embarrassing her brother is, and the Agony Aunt suggests adoption or running away from home.
Since the first time I saw THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS (1993), I have had a love of dark stop-motion animation. I think it’s great that stop-motion has never flooded the market in the ways that hand drawn or computer animated movies have. It always makes them very special, and you know it’s impossible to rush such a project. This year we are lucky enough to get two horror related stop motion animations, with PARANORMAN and Tim Burton’s animated remake of his short FRANKENWEENIE.
PARANORMAN stars the voices of Kodi SMit-McPhee, John Goodman, Anna Kendrick, Leslie Mann, Casey Affleck, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse. It will be released on 14th September. FRANKENWEENIE will star Martin Short, Martin Landau, Catherine O’Hara, Christopher Lee, Winona Ryder, and Charlie Tahan. It will be released on 17th October.
Source: Collider
