ParaNorman 2012

The film’s theme of social exclusion is a familiar one, recognisably embodied by 11-year- old Norman (Kodi Smith McPhee), a freaky misfit who’s able - a la The Sixth Sense - to see and talk to ghosts. His family doesn’t understand why he’s communicating with his very dead grandma, he’s constantly picked on by a dopey bully (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) and his only friend is Neil (Tucker Albrizzi), a bubbly, chubby ginga who, in an example of the film’s occasional dip into near-fratty humour, likes butt-ogling at aerobics vids.

The plot’s build-up - Norman discovering he’s the only one who can stop the looming curse of a witch - is perhaps paced more deliberately than most animated features, but by halfway point, the screen will be scattered with reality-bending visions, green-glowing ghouls, gangly- limbed zombies and marauding pitchfork-wielding mobs - all of which play like John Carpenter or George Romero pitched at tykes. ParaNorman loses steam in the predictably extended climactic swirl of CGI phantasmagoria and preachy peacemaking, but for the most part, its winningly cockeyed grasp of the macabre makes it ideal scare-fare for families. Hide