The Fear Street trilogy wraps up this week, but Laika is making sure that horrors made for kids don’t go away for long. The renowned animation studio has teamed with Fathom Events to return two of its best and scariest, Coraline and ParaNorman, back into theaters for a limited time.
Both of these films are great, and I would say a damn sight creepier than just about any animated horror around. Coraline hits theaters beginning August 24th, so terrifying button-eyed “parents” are your thing, this is your moment. The film is based on Neil Gaiman’s award-winning book, about the titular girl who discovers a seemingly idyllic, but ultimately sinister, parallel world. It was by far Laika’s biggest box office hit with $124M worldwide and a ton of accolades.
Arriving perfectly in the fall on November 16th is ParaNorman, my favorite Laika film outside of Kubo and the Two Strings. ParaNorman is the Tim Burton-esque story of a kid who can communicate with the dead, and of course, nobody in town believes him! This is, in my opinion, the funniest of Laika’s films while also delivering plenty of legit scares.
Laika will probably never get the box office appreciation they deserve, but all they do is put out great animated movies. Here’s hoping they make re-releases like this a regular thing. As a way of easing your kid into horror, you can hardly do better than Coraline and ParaNorman. I would love to see these together as a twinbill. Make it happen!
