‘ParaNorman’ Ramps Up The Scares For International Trailer

Norman sees dead people. But instead of borrowing its ideas from Haley Joel Osment and ‘The Sixth Sense,’ the adventurous animated thriller ‘ParaNorman’ looks a lot more like ‘The Monster Squad’ crossed with 'Scooby-Doo' … and that’s more than OK in our book.

A new international trailer for this summer’s creature feature arrived online, introducing more of the supporting characters and spelling out the plot in greater detail. It still focuses on Norman (voiced by Kodi Smit-McPhee of ‘Let Me In’), an adolescent who can communicate with the dead. When a witch’s curse sends legendary creatures to Norman’s town, the boy whom everyone considers a little bit strange has to rise up, meet the challenge, and save the day.

If you couldn’t guess from the visual style, ‘ParaNorman’ comes to us from LAIKA, the stop-motion geniuses who delivered ‘Coraline.’ Co-directors Chris Butler and Sam worked on that as well as Tim Burton’s ‘Corpse Bride,’ and you can see the gothic filmmakers influences all over this trailer.

I’m really hoping that ‘ParaNorman’ figures out how to stand on its own, though, and the scale of the horror – as well as the action-packed pace – in this international trailer really gives me hope.

‘ParaNorman’ opens everywhere on Aug. 17. What do you think of this teaser?