ParaNorman - Evolution of the zombie film
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Halloween is pretty awesome, probably one of the most exciting holidays. It’s the one time of year everyone is encouraged to dress in costume and actively embrace their fears or wonders with the benefit of not being especially judged. Or maybe you’re like me and you usually forget to put together a costume, stay at home to hand out full candy bars to the handful of children that scuttle up the driveway, watching one of your favorite scary movies. Except you probably watch something that’s actually scary, unlike me; I’m not so resolute as the average horror enthusiast tends to be. I’ll throw down John Carpenter’s The Thing every now and then, and I’m actually sad I didn’t get to catch this year’s Hereditary or Annihilation in theaters, but for my Halloween nights I tend to stick with comfort spooks like Coraline, Stranger Things (usually only
Season 1), the brand new Castlevania (Netflix), Over the Garden Wall, and my personal favorite for the season — Paranorman.
I don’t think the trailer does the film justice, but it gives you a base idea.
A Masterpiece in it’s own right
The film plays with a pretty standard setup: Norman Babcock can see and interact with the souls of the dead, but everyone thinks he's crazy. Norman’s Salem-like town is preparing for the local tourist celebration — the anniversary of “the witch's curse.” Unfortunately, when Norman finds out the witch’s curse is a real thing, and will lead to the rising of the dead, he’s called into action to protect his sleepy little town.
One excellent decision the film makes is choosing not to make this an origin story about Norman discovering his unique paranormal aptitude, instead having his ability to converse with the dead simply be a matter of fact that Norman has already come to terms with. The film understands that “why does he have X” is not nearly as interesting as “what will he do with X” and “what happens as a result of X,” resulting in a story that steers a bit off the beaten path but does so with a fantastic internal compass.
I also deeply appreciate the craft of the film as a whole. Laika studios has made a hearty name for itself in the daring world of stop-motion animation, often employing experimental techniques (first studio to effectively 3D-print a film with Coraline) with a unique style and demanding levels of detail and artistry. I would love to talk at length about all the things that make Laika great (and maybe I will some day), but suffice to say all their talent and nuance is brought to the forefront to make ParaNorman one of the best animated films every made.
But probably more than anything, I love ParaNorman (and other Laika productions) because it's willing to get its hands very dirty. This story has a lot to say about prejudice, bullying, and the potential repercussions of baseless fear. And despite these hard themes and the darker tone of their films, Laika stories are definitely made for kids. All of them are stories told from the framework of other kids who have realistic troubles that are only amplified by fantasy, not caused by fantasy. Norman is misunderstood; even without the ability to talk to the dead he still has a pretty deep fascination with zombie culture and horror films, and that strangeness of his leads to him being constantly undermined and bullied, even though he doesn't really deserve it. There are probably a lot of kids in the audience that understand what that feels like who also can't find an answer or an outlet for those feelings. I’ve been there, I get it. ParaNorman knows that its subject has the ability to be a bit uncomfortable, but dives head first and spares no expense. This company is honestly making some of the best children’s films out there because it’s incredibly clear that they understand children in a real way, and take them seriously.
At the heart of ParaNorman is a story that encourages acceptance, and contains a narrative showing that confronting an issue is harder than constantly offsetting it, but is ultimately worth the struggle. In the end, ParaNorman is simple enough for anyone to understand, while deeper than a majority of films made today, and it's hard not to fall in love with that.
But all that’s just the headstone reading, and I can’t dig into this patch of soil without dumping spoilers all over the place, so if you haven’t seen ParaNorman yet, please make it happen. It’s just so incredible on every level, does basically everything right, and is as unexpectedly profound as it is heart-achingly genuine.
A new identity for the Zombie film
Zombie films and television have a tendency to follow some pretty specific arrangements. Zombie outbreak becomes massive and widespread while the story hones in on a small group of survivors and ultimately tests their humanity. Some treat the downfall of society as a boon, embracing a more violent and hedonistic lifestyle, others retreat into wells of madness and depression, and the bulk of the masses are caught in a wave of mass hysteria. Could be infection, could be an ancient curse, but the circumstances don’t tend to matter as there are zombies now and they’re gonna eat your flesh and brains.
ParaNorman’s zombie infestation is a result of a witch’s curse, but in a refreshing change of pace, the role of the zombies are completely different than most other films. The backdrop of the curse (which is revealed in the film right at the Act 3 transition) is that several of Blithe Hollow’s residents accused a young girl, Agatha Prenderghast (a possible ancestor of Norman), of witchcraft, found her guilty and had her executed. She also had the ability to talk to spirits of the dead, which was harmless, but to the puritans of the time her actions were interpreted as something demonic that must be stopped. In death, she cursed them to be lost souls in death, rising from their graves every year on the anniversary of her death…but they aren’t brought back to cause destruction or spread the curse or anything like that. They’re brought back specifically to suffer.
What’s fascinating about ParaNorman’s approach is that Norman and everyone else in Blithe Hollow has a preconceived notion of what a “zombie outbreak” is supposed to be: they eat your brains and are a danger to society. So, when actual zombies appear, the townsfolk hardly spare a thought beyond an initial badly founded fear: they grab their torches and pitchforks (or anything else sharp or heavy they can grab) and proceed to mercilessly attack the harmless zombies, all while getting riled into a mob frenzy. The zombies didn’t have to do anything; the townsfolk were already infected with a terrible thirst for violence, unwittingly. As for the zombies, well, they get brought back to life just to experience everything Agatha did 300 years ago: unjust persecution and baseless fear.
This curious approach is largely catered to ParaNorman, but there’s actually one piece of it that really felt like a great transition for what zombie films could be turning into. Zombie films have the advantage of creating desperate circumstances that really wear away at the characters within them, but often the apex point of that narrative is once the people involved have gotten accustomed to the world with zombies and now humans are the real threat. Humans can think, plot, act unpredictably, and that makes them incredibly dangerous. ParaNorman creates and wields an entity that’s infinity more dangerous than zombies by combining them with the worst traits of humans: the mob. A dangerous horde of individuals, driven by a primal instinct (replace hunger with either fear or anger), but with the ability to actively mobilize and plan while still lacking common sense and restraint. The mob is a madness with intent, and that makes it significantly more motivated, and much harder to placate.
ParaNorman was the first film I saw that got me thinking about how much more effective a disease “mass hysteria” is over any zombie alternative, especially for the sake of a story. In a zombie narrative, there really aren’t a plethora of possibilities: zombies always hunt humans out of instinct, and never with any type of thought process. They just want to eat most of the time. What drives a mob though? Justice against corruption, maybe some sense of competition, revenge against a heinous wrong, or possibly out of simple paranoia. And these stirrings don’t need to be reasonable — there have been about 10 deaths and over 100 injuries from just the last 12 Black Fridays alone — there just needs to be something that riles people up. And, often times, it’s fear, the least predictable reason of all.
And for what it’s worth, I think mass hysteria and “the fanatical masses” is really starting to take center stage as an effective form of horror.
A small renewal of Mass Hysteria
Mass hysteria as a subject has started showing up more in film and television (given the state of politics in America and certain events in Charlottesville, I can’t possibly imagine why). The Purge series has had four very successful films starting in 2013 and a currently running television show, all of which explore the idea of “permitted” mass hysteria in which all crime is legal one night of every year. Earlier in 2018 we got Devilman Crybaby, a modern re-imagining of the classic anime production Devilman from the 1970’s, whose latter half was almost entirely focused on the consequences of mass hysteria unchecked, stating that it will ultimately lead to human extinction largely by our own hands. Probably the best and most visceral example of this kind of narrative, and the one that really cultivates it like bacteria in a petri dish, is Assassination Nation, which in my opinion is one of the best films of the year.
While mob mentality is potentially a powerful narrative hook, Assassination Nation is one of the only films I’ve seen that really asks the same question as ParaNorman: “What kind of culture makes a witch hunt happen?” Zombies don’t really need a reason to be, so the story lies in the reaction. Mass hysteria is a different beast though, it needs a driving force to really work. ParaNorman brilliantly has both (by having Mass Hysteria and violence be the reaction to the Zombies), but Assassination Nation uses the random exposure of privacy as its primary weapon. People in the film get hacked, all their secrets and files given to the entire town, and they react often with outrage and disgust at select parts of that information. Once half the town is hacked, effectively becoming victims to the other half, the attention turns into a witch hunt to find who’s responsible for “ruining everyone’s lives.”
And part of what makes films like Assassination Nation and ParaNorman work is that the blind rage of a mob always wants a simple solution, as in one solution. They want a target, and the easiest target to paint for drama is the main character. Again, it doesn’t need to be rational, just direct. And the worst part: the mob is still human, so there’s this idea that maybe they can be reasoned with, and nothing is more brutal or scarier than realizing that the people who want you dead are so absolutely enthralled with conviction that reason no longer applies.
I think we should probably expect to see more films that use this particular subject of horror. It’s proven that it can be extremely effective, and has lots of room to be in the current cultural climate. It’s still difficult to make these films effective and powerful, but the potential is so much higher.
Happy Halloween
Alright, I said I’d keep this one short since I’m sure most of you are getting ready for trick or treating or your holiday parties.
The bottom line is that I really love and appreciate ParaNorman for so many reasons, but especially because it’s one of the only films that introduced this idea of genre transition and evolution with zombie culture. I also find it impressive that it manages to do this while still being crafted at the highest possible level of artistry, being absolutely charming, and having some incredibly important messages to audiences young and old. It’s probably the easiest film in the world to recommend, so please go watch it and have an absolutely awesome Halloween.
And don’t forget to support us on Patreon, that Halloween candy won’t pay for itself :)
