Norman (Kodi Smit-McPhee – The Road) is an eleven year old boy living in a small Massachusetts town
famous for hanging a Witch three hundred years ago. Norman is unpopular at home and ridiculed at
school because he believes that he can talk to ghosts. After being approached
by a creepy old man about averting the ‘curse of the Witch’, Norman
accidentally raises a horde of zombies from their graves before enlisting their
help along with that of his sister Courtney (Anna Kendrick), friend Neil (Tucker
Albrizzi), Jock Mitch (Casey Affleck) and school bully Alvin (Christopher Mintz-Plasse)in
sending the Witch back to her grave.
The first of three hotly anticipated horror/comedy/stop
motion kids films we’ll see in the coming weeks and coming three years after Laika’s
success with Coraline, ParaNorman begins with a flourish which
sets it up to be an interesting and funny family film. Unfortunately it runs out
of steam after about fifty minutes when the jokes dry up and the predictable
plot takes over from what had been a fun, film which takes a surprisingly
candid look at death.
