ParaNorman

派拉诺曼: 灵动小子

If you had a certain offbeat* skill nobody else in your town has and you were bullied* and teased* about it, would you use it to save the very people who dis you daily? Norman Babcock does.

Tween Norman Babcock (voice of Kodi Smit-McPhee) is used to going through his odd, daily life: wake up, say hi to his dead grandma whose ghost hangs out on the family couch and greet all the local ghosts he meets on the way to school. Then, at school, where he is called "AbNorman" by bullies headed by dumb* Alvin (Christopher-Mintz-Plasse), he tries to make it through the day. His only friend is another sweet but clueless outcast* named Neil (Tucker Albrizzi).

Norman's little town has a secret. Although it's a tourist attraction now for its connection to legends about a witch's curse*, little do visitors know that real evil is kept at bay by Norman's uncle Mr. Prenderghast (John Goodman). Mr. P. can also talk to ghosts and reads passages from a book each year over a witch's grave to keep her silent and at rest. When Mr. P is dead, his ghost makes sure Norman gets the book and tells him he must do the yearly reading or the witch will raise zombies* to destroy the town!

Norman enters the scary graveyard to read the book aloud but it doesn't work! Zombies start to rise and it's up to Norman, his overbearing* teen sis Courtney (Anna Kendrick), her boyfriend Mitch Neil (Casey Affleck) and even Alvin to find out why the zombies have risen and how to put them at rest.

By the end of the evening, zombies have stalked* the town, the locals have taken up arms, Norman has made a new friend and a shameful secret, hidden for hundreds of years, is exposed.

Almost nothing is what it seems on the surface but one thing is sure; Norman's courage and compassion* have made him a hero!

Like the cool kid adventure movies of the 1980s, "ParaNorman" is entertaining, smart and a load of scary/funny fun!