We’re being spoiled by all the great stop-motion animation films coming out this year. ParaNorman is the latest offering from the LAIKA studio, who gave us the dark and wonderful Coraline. A charming hand-crafted supernatural tale about an unlikely hero, ParaNorman has just the right amount of bite to keep the adults in the audience entranced too.

Norman Babcock (Kodi Smit-McPhee) lives in the little town of Blithe Hollow. Not your typical moody pre-teen, he is obsessed with horror films and possesses a very special talent – this shy nerdy boy can also communicate with the dead. The only problem is that no one, from his family to the school bully, believes his stories. It’s only when his black sheep uncle (John Goodman) keels over that Norman learns he’s next in line for a centuries-old task: protecting his 300 year-old town from a destructive witch’s curse.

Earlier this year at Comic-Con, debut writer and co-director Chris Butler perfectly described ParaNorman as “John Carpenter meets John Hughes”. What could be better than that?