ParaNorman

Film genres are evolving and improving from time to time as the third condition of genre is 'be innovative', film makers can use their creativity to present a genre on the screen without changing the universal language or the traditional elements of the genre.

There are some traditional genre that started in the early stage of film making and horror is the most recognizable by the emotional effect it tries to arouse. The horror film aims to shock, disgust, repel, also known as to horrify (Bordwell. D & Thompson. K, 2009). What horrify the audiences in a horror film is the monster in the screen, it is a dangerous breach of nature, a violation of our normal sense of what is possible. The monster can be unnaturally large like King Kong; might violate the boundary between the dead and the living, as vampires and zombies do; might be an ordinary human who is transformed like Dr. Jekyll becomes Mr. Hyde after drinking his portion; or something unknown to science like the creature in Alien film. The iconography of the horror film includes setting where monsters might be expected to lurk such as the old house where the family moves in in The Conjuring (2013). On the other hand, slasher subgenre has made superhuman killers invade everyday settings such as summer camps and suburban neighbourhoods.

Postmodernism is a term that came up in the late 1960s. It comprehended as an historical condition that contained social, political, cultural agendas and resonance and also can be described as an attitude of a mentality of ‘anything goes’, therefore nothing works, or the questioning of the modernist ideals of progress, reason and science. Postmodernism is a concept of ‘think out of the box’, which challenge the tradition or system of the way of how things are. This motivates the filmmakers to try something new in filmmaking such as mixing genre. ParaNorman (2012) is one of the representation of postmodernist film and will be discussed.

ParaNorman (2012) is a 3D stop-motion animated film that is about a kid named Norman who has the ability to talk to the death. One day, he receives word from his strange Uncle Prenderghast that a centuries-old witch's curse on their town is real and about to come true and Norman is the only one who can stop it. After the dead of Uncle Prenderghast, Norman starts his adventure with Courtney, Mitch, Neil and Alvin to save the town from the curse. 

This is a stop-motion animated horror film with the subgenre of unnatural because it consists of ghosts and zombies. The first example of ghost that appears in the film is Norman's grandmother who tell him that she feels cold in the living room. Norman then ask his father to turn up the heater but his family do not believe him and tell him that his grandmother is dead.

Action genre can also be found in this film as there is a scene where Norman and Alvin is running away from the zombies from the grave yard, where the monster is expected to lurk, to Uncle Prenderghast's house, then get in Mitch's car and run to the town.

There is also comedy genre in this film, which is brought by Neil, the cute little fat kid. There is one scene in the town hall where everyone of them decide to leave Norman but Neil choose to stay and tell Mitch that no one can move him, but Mitch just take him up like a baby and walk out.

With all the different kind of genre in this film, this clearly shows that ParaNorman (2012) is a postmodernist film.