I must confess that entertainment dealing with witches, curses and magic — fantasy elements — makes me yearn for something else.  Zombies, however, are another story, and, thankfully, there are seven zombies to only one witch in ParaNorman, a new animated adventure from Laika Entertainment.  I mention the company name because ParaNorman is startlingly original, with truly impressive animation techniques that bolster its story in many ways.

Its story is somewhat pat and familiar: a young boy is bullied at school and at home because he is “different.”  In this case, he can converse with dead people who have not yet departed the Earth; it is a talent bound to get him into trouble.  Sure enough, an anniversary of a witch’s curse brings back to undead life the seven men who convicted her to death 300 years before.

This may not sound like great stuff for kids, and I would agree that younger or more sensitive children would probably be alarmed or frightened by it.  Older kids, though, would love it, and it is fast-moving and sassy enough to keep adults interested, too. The real fireworks arrive in the second half, as the town goes wild hunting down the zombies and Norman risks himself to convince the witch to stop her evil ways.  And while the story never quite breaks free of the expected, the visual motifs that support it are beautifully realized.  Chris Butler and Sam Fell have directed an animated feature that is both comfortingly familiar and wildly imaginative, and, unlike Laika’s previous movie Coraline, I enjoyed this a great deal.  ☆ ☆ ☆.  23 August 2012.