It's not every animated film that features zombies, witches, and corpses falling on top of troubled children. But, just in time for Halloween, LAIKA pictures gives us ParaNorman, about a troubled little boy who saves his small-town from zombies. As I watched this movie, I couldn't help but wonder if this movie was less about zombie wars and more about culture wars.
The film introduces us to a marginalized and bullied middle-school boy, Norman, who sees dead people. In fact, he speaks and converses with the ghosts of the dead, but seems socially paralyzed around the living. He hears his parents arguing about him in the next room, mostly because his father is embarrassed of him. "He's afraid," Norman's mother reassures him. "Not afraid of you; he's afraid for you."
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