ParaNorman 3D

Plot: Norman can talk to dead people. In his New England town, there is a long dead witch who cursed the town years ago. Norman needs to talk to her, so she will call off a zombie plague.

Norman can't quite manage that so the zombies show up to harass him, his sister, his friend Neil, Neil's brother, and a bully from school. 

Soon the people of the town are out to lynch the zombies, and Norman has to puzzle out the answer before its too late.  [imdb link]    [photos]

Review: ParaNorman is a light-weight kid's horror movie that is not really scary, not really funny, and that has limited depth of characters. It has some sitcom humor and a bit of interesting satire. The monsters are more ugly than scary. I got tired of looking at their unlikely unpleasantness. 

The story is resolved with a fairly obvious role-reversal. The 3D make the visuals a little crisper, but there is not much interesting to see.  No spectacle to see and limited imagination aside from the scenes of the sky. 

Overall, ParaNorman lacks anything of value. It was over-rated by the critics who give dynamite ratings to any kid's movie that isn't complete drival. 

I wish I'd seen something else. 

Directed by: Chris Butler, Sam Fell; written by Chris Butler. 

Rating: 1.5 stars

More: Writer-director Chris Butler worked on the 2-star Coraline and the 2-star Corpse Bride - both stop-action animation like this one. 

Even more: Speaking of Corpse Bride, the best thing about that movie is the dancing skeletons, and the Corpse Bride song. (This version has the dancing skeletons, but the music is not as good.)  ParaNorman could have used dancing skeletons. Probably could have used the Flying Elvises too.