Sightlines · reception

How ParaNorman was received

2012 · Sam Fell · ParaNorman on Sightlines

The arc

In 2012 it earned warm reviews and an Oscar nomination but modest box office, overshadowed by Brave and Frankenweenie in a crowded spooky-animation year; it's since climbed into 'one of Laika's best' territory and a locked-in annual Halloween rewatch.

What’s debated

The perennial Laika fan fight: is ParaNorman actually better than Coraline — and was its Best Animated Feature loss to Brave a robbery?

Its footprint

It's remembered as a milestone for featuring the first openly gay character in a mainstream American animated feature — a casually dropped line that made headlines in 2012 — and Grandma's 'there's nothing wrong with being scared... so long as you don't let it change who you are' gets endlessly quoted.

Where it stands

A cult Laika favorite and Halloween-season staple — the go-to 'underrated' pick when animation fans rank the studio.

Did you know? ParaNorman was the first stop-motion feature to use full-color 3D printing for its replacement faces — Norman alone had thousands of printed faces, giving him over a million possible expressions.

Named by the director

• John Hughes — Writer/co-director Chris Butler famously pitched the film as 'a John Hughes movie meets a John Carpenter movie,' citing Hughes for its teen-outsider heart.
• John Carpenter — The other half of Butler's stated pitch — Carpenter's small-town horror tone was the declared model for the film's scares and atmosphere.