Brad Bird's The Iron Giant is now recognized as one of the best films of the past decade or so for good reason in its refusal to talk down to its pre-teen audience about its serious premise. Its fantastical storyline was a front for keen satire about the paranoia of the Cold War and contained a grave parable about humanity being brought to destruction by its own fears and prejudices rather than any external monster. More than a decade later, I am pleased to announce that in ParaNorman, Laika Studios has come up with a film that does the same for the problems of childhood bullying and alienation.

Norman Babcock (voiced fittingly enough by Let Me In's put-upon Kodi Smit McPhee) is a put-upon pre-teen in the small New England town of Blithe Hollow, whose founding myth is that of a witch’s curse that would resurrect its founding fathers as zombies. Norman isn't just ostracized because he's a sullen child who loves old horror movies (even if that's bad enough), but because he can talk to the various ghosts that inhabit the town. His weird foibles give his parents headaches over their inability to either change him or stop him from becoming the town embarrassment, as well make him shunned by his vain cheerleader sister Courtney (Anna Kendrick) and picked on by oafish school bully Alvin (a cast-against-type Christopher Mintz-Plasse).

When Norman's uncle Prendergast (John Goodman), who has shared his power to commune with the dead, dies just before the night the witch's curse is about to be fulfilled, tasks Norman with stopping the curse this fateful year, Norman fails and seven of the town's ancestors are resurrected as zombies who embark on a hilarious raging rampage through town. Norman finds unexpected allies in his former tormentors Courtney and Alvin. Also tagging along are Norman's only friend, the accepting, easygoing chubby fellow outcast Neil (Tucker Albrizzi) and Neil's dimwitted jock brother Mitch (Casey Affleck).

Lovingly animated, ParaNorman is a technical marvel to behold with its spot-on, personality-filled character designs, while a strong, funny and suspenseful script satisfies with its character development and organic, character-driven humour that pokes loving fun at the 70s B-movies that are an artistic influence on the film, as well as the works of Joe Dante and Tim Burton at their 80s peak, while always finding the right balance of grossness and fun in the mix.

Make not the mistake that this movie is all nothing but ghoulish fun, for ParaNorman does veer into unexpectedly dark, tragic, upsetting and poignant territory in its final act (one moment of pregnant silence is among the film's strongest bits.) It is a horror film indeed, and one made for the entire family as well, that never forgets to root its horror in its human element, in its message of the dangers of how mob mentality and intolerance may turn everyday people more terrifying than any zombies the mind can conjure and pleading a message of acceptance without ever coming off preachy. It does for does for family horror what the The Iron Giant did for family science fiction, and joins a rare and distinguished company of films that will appeal to the young and young at heart alike. Tim Burton's feature length remake of his short film Frankenweenie is to be out later this year, but it already looks like it's getting a serious run for the money.

P.S. The film has gained attention in the US for its almost revolutionary use of an openly gay character in a family film, but what also strikes this reviewer is the way the movie gives symbolic visual cues and hints in the subliminal that another character could very well be homosexual. I'll leave the viewer to find out who it is.