ParaNorman is a 2012 American stop-motion animated comedy horror film directed by Sam Fell and Chris Butler (the latter's feature directorial debut), and written by Butler. Produced by Laika, the film stars the voices of Kodi Smit-McPhee, Jodelle Ferland, Bernard Hill, Tucker Albrizzi, Anna Kendrick, Casey Affleck, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Leslie Mann, Jeff Garlin, Elaine Stritch, Tempestt Bledsoe, Alex Borstein, and John Goodman. It is the first stop-motion film to use a 3-D color printer to create character faces, and only the second to be shot in 3-D. In the film, Norman Babcock, a young boy who can communicate with ghosts, is given the task of ending a 300-year-old witch's curse on his Massachusetts town.

Plot

In the small town of Blithe Hollow, Massachusetts, Norman Babcock is an 11-year-old boy who speaks with the dead, including his late grandmother and various ghosts in town. Almost no one believes him and he is isolated emotionally from his family while being looked down upon by his own peers around the school. Neil Downe, an overweight boy who is also bullied, finds in Norman a kindred spirit. After rehearsing a school play commemorating the town's execution of a witch three centuries ago, the boys are confronted by Norman's estranged and seemingly deranged great-uncle, Mr. Prenderghast, who tells Norman that he soon must take up his regular ritual to protect the town. Soon after this encounter, Mr. Prenderghast dies of a heart attack.