Ceris' 31 Days of Horror Challenge: Day 15 - ParaNorman

Now this is a film I can enjoy! Norman is from a typical American Family, except Norman is not typical .... he can see the ghosts of people who have passed away.

Art by Graham Erwin

The town Norman lives in burned a witch 300 years ago. After a rehearsal for the reenactment with his best friend Neil, Norman meets his Uncle Mr Prenderghast who warns him he will have to complete a ritual to protect the town. Prenderghast dies and his ghost is not impressed - I don’t think I would be either.

During the actual performance, Norman has a vision of what it’ll happen to the town - and essentially makes an idiot of himself in front of the town - his father is super pissed at this! In school the following day, Norman tries to go to the toilet but his uncle decides he needs to speak to him and appears from the toilet - that’s a bit weird! Prenderghast makes Norman promise to use the books that is in his literally cold, dead hands to perform the ritual. Norman agrees and his uncle is freed from being stuck on earth.

Norman sensibly is having second thoughts about his promise to his uncle, however is grandma tells him it’s okay to be scared as long as it doesn’t change you, so Norman heads off to get the book. He then races to the graves of people cursed by the witch and starts to read the story, however Alvin the bully (who can’t spell ded) stops him before he can finish and all hell breaks loose and the dead rise as zombies!

Norman realises the witch isn’t in the graveyard and so asks for help from Selma and she tells him to go to the Town Hall to find out where her grave is. Norman, Neil, Mitch, Courtney and Alvin are chars into the town. They barricade themselves in as the living and the living dead fight outside. The witch storm appears and Norman tries to read the book again but this time from the tower - not sure if he thinks being higher up will help?!

The witch knocks him off by hitting the tower with lightening and unconscious Norman has a dream that shows him Agatha Prenderghast was a young girl wrongfully convicted of being a witch. When he wakes, the zombies tell him they need his help to get them back to the grave - it concerns me how calm Norman is around them! Norman realises reading the story to make Agatha go back to sleep for a year isn’t enough and knows he has to free her to end the curse.

Norman confronts the mob (with a bit of help from Courtney) and they calm down, however the witch storm is anything but calm. Zombie judge Hopkins leads them to Aggies grave - again no one seems phased by any of this.

Agatha decides to split Norman up from his family and he decides to go an confront her. Even though she is a bitch witch and tries to push him away, he tells her he understands why she feels like an outcast - to be fair he has first hand experience of this! Agatha finally realises who she truly is and passes over to the other side and the curse is lifted.

The film ends with everyone sat round watching a horror film and even Normans dad finally accepts who he is - and even says hello to his mum!

This film is a firm favourite of mine and a welcome break from the other scary ones in this #31daysofhorror line up!

#ParaNorman #Review #HorrorMovies #Horror #FamilyFriendly