Paranorman Leaves Audiences Screaming For More

Paranorman is the latest animated kids summer (potential) blockbuster, following a young boy named Norman who can speak to the dead whose town is being ravaged by flesh hungry zombies. Admittedly, it isn't your typical kids film, however that by no means makes it a bad film as critics are currently singing the film's praises on an almost universal scale.

Starring Anna Kendrick, Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Kodi Smit-McPhee as the titular Norman, it isn't just zombies that the young ghoul-whisperer has to face, as there's witches, ghosts and perhaps scariest of all, parents, in his path to rid his town of all that is spooky. The film currently holds a 85 per cent 'fresh' rating on Rotten Tomatoes and critics from across the board are commending the stop motion film from the same production company as Coraline. Entertainment Weekly lauded the film for being "a feat of stop-motion animation, [that] is made with generous care", whilst The Village Voice commented that when director/writer Chris Butler called the film "John Carpenter meets John Hughes," he pretty much hit the nail on the head as it is a film with all the campy horror and subtle comedy of a Carpenter film, mixed with the emotion and laugh-out-laugh comedy of a Hughes film.

However, one critic did seem to struggle when finding the funny side of the affair, with Joe Neumaier of the New York Daily News describing the film "as slow as a corpse, and half as interesting." That said, perhaps Mr Neumaier should lighten up a little and enjoy these films for what they are. Paranorman will be released on the14th of September this year in the UK and comes out tomorrow in the US (August 17, 2012).