Will Norman be able to save his town from a zombie invasion?

In a summer where a few tentpole films have underperformed at the box office, there’s a small gem that may be a bright light in the dog days of August. Directors Sam Fell and Chris Butler tell the story of a young misfit who sees dead people and becomes entangled in a witch’s curse that could conjure a zombie uprising in his small New England Township. It’s a classic tale of tween angst set against a backdrop of ghoulish sight gags.

From Focus Features and LAIKA, the companies that also created the Academy Award-nominated animated feature Coraline, comes the comedy thriller ParaNorman. The second stop-motion animated feature to be made at LAIKA in 3D takes place in Blithe Hollow whose locals profit from mining the town’s 300-year old history as the site of a famous witch hunt. Norman Babcock (voiced by Kodi Smit-McPhee of “Let Me In” and “The Road”) spends much of his days enjoying scary movies and studying ghost lore. What sets him apart from the town’s inhabitants is his ability to see and speak with the dead, such as his beloved grandmother. Middle school is tough enough for kids, but when you are known as “Ab-Norman” for frequent trances and relaying dispatches from beyond the grave, the simple things most children enjoy in school makes the experience all that more difficult.