Children's Horror Part 1: ParaNorman

Well it is officially Autumn and that means that people aside from me are going to start getting excited about Halloween. With this comes movie channels gradually moving to horror movies 24/7 until the wonderful month of October is over. It also means that children's channels will start showing Halloween and junior horror films. What is a junior horror film you might ask? Well there aren't as many good ones to point to in recent history, but if you are around my age you might remember a few. To me a good junior horror movie has 1. a real monster, 2. a combination of jump scares and humour 3. a lack of real blood and gore so parents don't feel they are corrupting their children & 4. at least a couple of jokes or moments only the adults being forced to watch these with the wee ones will get. A prime example to me are the Scooby Doo movies of the late 90s where there are real zombies & a twist I didn't see coming as a kid and in the other they solve a mystery of a fake witch only to have it turn out there is a real witch's curse that gets released by a Stephen King wannabe. Another would be Beetlejuice, I mean come on who doesn't love Beetlejuice? I'd watch Beetlejuice anytime of th- OH SHIT I said his name three times!

I hope you now understand what I mean when I say junior horror because this is the first in an ongoing series of articles basically about modern junior horror . And for our first instalment for your reading pleasure is my observational review of ParaNorman. If you don't want any accidental spoilers than please watch the movie, then read this. Otherwise click on to read more.