DVD review: Stop-motion chills enliven 'Paranorman'

By Sean P. Means The Salt Lake Tribune

Published: November 27, 2012 10:46 am
This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Grade • B

DVD • Hanging around with the undead has seldom been as fun as it is in "ParaNorman," a funny and thrilling stop-motion animated tale. Poor Norman (voiced by Kodi Smit-McPhee) is a sad-sack middle-schooler whose friends are mostly ghosts whom only he can talk to.

Then crazy old Mr. Prenderghast (voiced by John Goodman) dies and leaves Norman with the job of protecting the town against a vengeful witch who launches a zombie invasion. The voice cast brings plenty of humor to the cool Halloween atmosphere.

The whole movie looks effortless, which is why the DVD extras — which celebrate the film's painstaking stop-motion process — are so revealing. —

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