Paranorman (2012)

In the town of Blithe Hollow, Norman Babcock is a boy who can speak to the dead, but no one besides his eccentric new friend, Neil, believes his ability is real. One day, Norman's estranged eccentric uncle tells him of an important annual ritual he must take up to protect the town from an curse cast by a witch it condemned centuries ago. Eventually, Norman decides to cooperate, but things don't go according to plan. Now, a magic storm of the witch threatens Blithe Hollow as the accursed dead rise. Together with unexpected new companions, Norman struggles to save his town, only to discover the horrific truth of the curse. With that insight, Norman must resolve the crisis for good as only he can.

Did You Know?
The film was shot using a Canon 5D Mark II DSLR Camera. To generate the 3D effects, the camera was mounted on a special rig that would take one shot, then slide to a slightly different viewpoint to take another shot.

The film company Laika used 3D printers to generate all of the different faces needed for the characters. During the last few weeks leading up to the film's release, Laika sent 49 packages to 49 people (including Neil Gaiman and Kevin Smith). Each package consisted of a wooden crate from "Blithe Hollow" full of "grave dirt" which recipients had to dig through to unearth a coffin. Inside the coffin was one of the seven cursed zombies, complete with background information and name.

Save for Judge Hopkins, the seven cursed zombies are not referred to by name, but they did have names: the aforementioned Judge Hopkins, Eben Hardwick, Thaddeus Blackton, Lemuel Spalding, Amelia Wilcot, Goodie Temper, and Wile London.

The story is set in the town of Blithe Hollow, whose name is a mash-up of two other ghost stories: Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit (1945) and Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1949).

After the credits, a short featurette shows a time-lapse video of the creation and modeling of the Norman figure used for filming


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