Episode 126 - ParaNorman (Sam Fell & Chris Butler, 2012) (with Stacey Abbott)
ParaNorman (Sam Fell & Chris Butler, 2012).
The Fantasy/Animation podcast takes listeners on a journey through the intersection between fantasy cinema and the medium of animation. Available via Apple Podcasts, Spotify and many of your favourite podcast hosting platforms!
As Halloween rolls around once more, things take a positively spooky turn as Chris and Alex discuss the stop-motion animated horror film ParaNorman (Sam Fell & Chris Butler, 2012) with very special guest Professor Stacey Abbott, who is incoming Professor of Film at Northumbria University and an expert in histories of gothic and horror in film and television. Topics for this discussion include the role of horror cinema in processing trauma, including the special case of children’s horror that is both with and for children; horror as a series of embodiments and the broader question of body genres; links between ParaNorman and Frankenweenie (Tim Burton, 2012) in the creation of juvenile outsiderdom; the troublesom entanglement of digital effects with stop-motion aesthetics; why horror might work best when connected to the materiality of object animation; and how ParaNorman is a film that reflexively recognises the many pleasures of horror for children.
**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**
**As featured on Feedspot’s 25 Best London Education Podcasts**
Suggested Readings
Abbott, Stacey and Lorna Jowett, eds. 2021. Global TV Horror. Cardiff: University of Wales, Press.
Abbott, Stacey. 2016. Undead Apocalypse: Vampires and Zombies in the 21st Century. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Abbott, Stacey and Lorna Jowett. 2013. TV Horror: Investigating the Dark Side of the Small Screen. London: I.B. Tauris.
Lester, Catherine. 2016, “The children’s horror film: characterizing an “Impossible” subgenre.” Velvet Light Trap 78: 22-37.
Lester, Catherine. 2021. Horror Films for Children: Fear and Pleasure in American Cinema. London: Bloomsbury.