History WesternAnimation / Paranorman

* SpiritualAntithesis: To ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooAndTheWitchsGhost'', given their similar genre (family/horror/comedy/mystery), settings (Salem-esque, Massachusetts), and subject manner (how a town's witch-related legends and past affects them in the present). However, ''[=ParaNorman=]'' inverts the order of the films' shared plot points to create significantly contrasting themes. In ''The Witch's Ghost,'' the witch is presented as an innocent and unjustly executed HeroWithBadPublicity by her descendant and the twist is that she was evil and her ghost enacts a curse upon the town in the third act. In ''[=ParaNorman=]'', the inciting incident is that the curse of an executed witch is coming into effect over a Massachusetts town and the third act ''twist'' is that the "witch"'s descendant discovers the "witch" was innocent and unjustly executed, and the curse is her restless ghost lashing out from the trauma of being murdered by her community. ''[=ParaNorman=]'' can easily read as a brutally honest update on ''Scooby Doo and the Witch's Ghost,'' considering ''[=ParaNorman=]'' focuses heavily on the cruelty that was committed onto its "witch" during the Trials and how society has perpetuated the narrative of the victims being villains to make history more palatable, in direct contrast to ''The Witch's Ghost,'' which leans into the narratives behind the executions by not only portraying its witch as truly evil and implicitly justifying her execution but also casting her surviving descendant's attempts to clear her name in the historical record as a villainous plot to trick people. It's likely that the dialogue between the two films is deliberate, because while he never specifically addresses ''The Witch's Ghost,'' ''Scooby Doo'' is referred to by director Christ Butler [[https://thefilmstage.com/video-interview-paranorman-co-directors-chris-butler-sam-fell-talk-scooby-doo-influence-bullying-puppet-hospitals-more/ as being a "defining influence"]] on ''[=ParaNorman=].'''' The two films even have similar (and similarly inverted) book-finding subplots; in ''The Witch's Ghost,'' the cast are seeking the witch's allegedly mundane book, which turns out at the end of the second act to be a spellbook that is eventually used against her to return her to the grave. In ''[=ParaNorman=],'' Norman begins the second act trying to retrieve a book he believes can help him magically return the witch to her grave, but it turns out to be an ordinary book only significant because of its sentimental value to the "witch."

* SpiritualAntithesis: To ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooAndTheWitchsGhost'', given their similar genre (family/horror/comedy/mystery), settings (Salem-esque, Massachusetts), and subject manner (how a town's witch-related legends and past affects them in the present). However, ''[=ParaNorman=]'' inverts the order of the films' shared plot points to create significantly contrasting themes. In ''The Witch's Ghost,'' the witch is presented as an innocent and unjustly executed HeroWithBadPublicity by her descendant and [[spoiler: the twist is that she was evil and her ghost enacts a curse upon the town in the third act.]] In ''[=ParaNorman=]'', the inciting incident is that the curse of an executed witch is coming into effect over a Massachusetts town and the third act ''twist'' is that the "witch"'s descendant discovers the "witch" was innocent and unjustly executed, and the curse is her restless ghost lashing out from the trauma of being murdered by her community. ''[=ParaNorman=]'' can easily read as a brutally honest update on ''Scooby Doo and the Witch's Ghost,'' considering ''[=ParaNorman=]'' focuses heavily on the cruelty that was committed onto its "witch" during the Trials and how society has perpetuated the narrative of the victims being villains to make history more palatable, in direct contrast to ''The Witch's Ghost,'' which [[spoiler:leans into the narratives behind the executions by not only portraying its witch as truly evil and implicitly justifying her execution, execution but also casting her surviving descendant's attempts to clear her name in the historical record as a villainous plot to trick people.]] It's likely that the dialogue between the two films is deliberate, because while he never specifically addresses ''The Witch's Ghost,'' ''Scooby Doo'' is referred to by director Christ Butler [[https://thefilmstage.com/video-interview-paranorman-co-directors-chris-butler-sam-fell-talk-scooby-doo-influence-bullying-puppet-hospitals-more/ as being a "defining influence"]] on ''[=ParaNorman=].'''' The two films even have similar (and similarly inverted) book-finding subplots; in ''The Witch's Ghost,'' the cast are seeking the witch's allegedly mundane book, [[spoiler:which turns out at the end of the second act to be a spellbook that is eventually used against her to return her to the grave.]] In ''[=ParaNorman=],'' Norman begins the second act trying to retrieve a book he believes can help him magically return the witch to her grave, but it turns out to be an ordinary book only significant because of its sentimental value to the "witch."

** Interestingly enough, it arguably qualifies as one to ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooOnZombieIsland''. Both are very dark, deconstructive, and cynical movies about a cast of young people fighting the accursed undead that (initially) no one believes are real. They also have a nearly identical plot twist at their cores: the supposedly evil zombies who are apparently "hunting" the protagonists were responsible in life for the female villain(s)' StartOfDarkness, and the zombies are actually trying to ''help'' the protagonists to be freed from their curse and [[TheAtoner atone for the evil they did]] when they were alive.

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Played both for drama ''and'' laughs, sometimes simultaneously. The second half of the movie plays almost all of the classic ZombieApocalypse tropes totally straight, except that it's the terrified, outnumbered, and helpless ''zombies'' who are [[InvertedTrope running from the bloodthirsty mob of townspeople.]]

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Courtney is a typical self-centered teenager, but she's not a bad person and she's the first one to convince the town to give her little brother a break.

The film follows the titular protagonist, Norman (voiced by [[Film/TheRoad Kodi]] [[Film/LetMeIn Smit-McPhee]]), living in a small town in Massachusetts. With the "gift" of speaking to the dead, Norman is considered an outcast by the majority of the town, most of which is populated by [[AdultsAreUseless childish adults]] and a nasty population of kids. When the town comes under siege by [[ZombieApocalypse zombies,]] [[OurGhostsAreDifferent ghosts]] and [[WickedWitch witches]], only he can actually save the town from these creatures, not to mention a three centuries-old curse.

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/paranorman_9144.jpg]]

The film follows the titular protagonist, Norman (voiced by [[Film/TheRoad Kodi]] [[Literature/LetTheRightOneIn Smit-McPhee]]), living in a small town in Massachusetts. With the "gift" of speaking to the dead, Norman is considered an outcast by the majority of the town, most of which is populated by [[AdultsAreUseless childish adults]] and a nasty population of kids. When the town comes under siege by [[ZombieApocalypse zombies,]] [[OurGhostsAreDifferent ghosts]] and [[WickedWitch witches]], only he can actually save the town from these creatures, not to mention a three centuries-old curse.

* RightForTheWrongReasons: Well, the Puritans were quite right that Agatha had powers and would become an "evil witch", they just didn't consider that she would do so [[ThenLetMeBeEvil as a direct consequence]] of their [[SelfFulfillingProphecy accusations.]]

The film follows the titular protagonist, Norman (voiced by [[Film/TheRoad Kodi]] [[Literature/LetTheRightOneIn Smit-McPhee]]), living in a small town in Massachusetts. With the "gift" of speaking to the dead, Norman is considered an outcast by the majority of the town, most of which is populated by [[AdultsAreUseless childish adults]] and a nasty population of kids. When the town comes under siege by [[ZombieApocalypse zombies,]] [[OurGhostsAreDifferent ghosts]] and [[WickedWitch witches]], only he can actually save the town from these creatures, not to mention a three centuries-old curse on the town.

The film follows the titular protagonist, Norman (voiced by [[Film/TheRoad Kodi]] [[Literature/LetTheRightOneIn Smit-McPhee]]), living in a small town in Massachusetts. With the "gift" of speaking to the dead, Norman is called an outcast by most of the town, most of which populated by [[AdultsAreUseless childish adults]] and a nasty population of kids. When the town comes under siege by [[ZombieApocalypse zombies,]] [[OurGhostsAreDifferent ghosts]] and [[WickedWitch witches]], only he can actually save the town from these creatures, not to mention a three centuries-old curse on the town.

** 1When Mitch accidentally runs over a zombie, the head comes to life and growls at him. He freaks out and kicks it. When he gets back in the car, Courtney and the others are freaking out over a man apparently coming back to life, Mitch is more impressed by [[LovableJock how far he kicked the zombie's head]].

* GypsyCurse: What Aggie inflicts on the town for her unjust condemnation.

* GreenIsUnnatural: All the ghosts glow pale green to underscore their undead state. The witch's powers glow bright green to emphasize her supposed evil nature.

* AdorablyPrecociousChild: Norman.

* AloofBigSister: Courtney.

* AllOfTheOtherReindeer: {{Deconstruction}}. Norman tries to take the constant bullying with grace but often finds his heroics hampered by [[FatBestFriend almost]] every living person's low opinion of him. It doesn't help that the witch (in fact, an 11 year old girl) ''died'' because of this.

** Don't automatically take your own viewpoint for correct. All of the problems in the film are caused by a lack of critical thinking, on both the apparent good and evil sides. First this applies to the Puritan jury who killed Agatha out of fear, then this applies to the people of the present day fighting the zombies, then it applies to Agatha herself for condemning the Puritans to be zombies.

* ArmorPiercingQuestion: Norman, to the Zombie after finding out what they did to Agatha.
->''"How could you?"''

--->'''Agatha:''' I'll make you ''suffer''!
--->'''Norman:''' Why?
--->'''Agatha:''' (searching for an answer) Because...because...

* BigEater: Neil.

* TheBully: Alvin.

* DumbJock: Mitch.

* EatingTheEyeCandy: Courtney is ''delighted'' when Mitch answers the door wearing nothing but a towel.
-->'''Mitch''': Uh... Can I help you?
-->[Beat]
-->'''Courtney''': ''Hell yeah''.

* FatBestFriend: Neil.

* ForcedMeme: In-universe: "That's ''so'' Alvin!"

* {{Forgiveness}}: One of the main themes of the film.

* GymBunny: [[StraightGay Mitch]].

* ISeeDeadPeople: And it's a whole lot more prosaic to him than to the TropeNamer.
** And considerably more fatal for Agatha.

* {{Leitmotif}}: Both Norman and Neil have very noticeable ones, Norman's being a clarinet with acoustic guitar in the background, and Neil's being a simple keyboard riff with a xylophone and what seems to be bongos in the background.

* OneOfTheKids: Mitch.
* OnlySaneMan: Norman's grandmother.
* OurGhostsAreDifferent: Agatha Prenderghast has very [[ShockAndAwe interesting]] powers, carried over, presumably, from life. However, she's the only one -- all the other ghosts are talkative at best.

-->'''Mitch''': Can I help you?
-->'''Courtney''': Hell yeah!

* TheReveal: The witch is just a scared and angry little girl, and the spell book really isn't anything but a bedtime story. Oh and Mitch is gay.

** It could also be seen as this to WesternAnimation/{{Coraline}}. It's made by the same studio, in stop-motion and it's about an eleven year old kid going up against a supernatural threat.

'''Norman''': I think you'll be safe.
** It takes Alvin a couple seconds to realize what Norman meant, but he doesn't react to it due to the zombies appearing.

** After the credits, a stop-motion video of how Norman's figure was made is shown. He then gets up and walks off screen.
** Which is made rather impressive when you consider that the entire 10 second sequence had to have taken over two weeks of taking a picture, nudging a part, taking a picture, nudging a part, taking a picture, nudging a part...

-->'''Sandra:''' Oh my gosh. Do you think this has got anything to do with Norman?
-->'''Perry:''' Of course not.
-->'''Random Stranger:''' Everyone Look!
-->(Cue Norman climbing City Hall)

* UndeadChild: Agatha, tragically.

* YourBrainWontBeMuchOfAMeal: See StealthInsult above.

* BigBad: The witch's ghost... [[SubvertedTrope or so it seems at first]].

* ArmorPiercingQuestion: During the climax.
-->'''Agatha:''' I'll make you ''suffer''!
-->'''Norman:''' Why?
-->'''Agatha:''' (searching for an answer) Because...because...

* TheAtoner: The Judge (as well as the other zombies) know that the curse is their fault because of what they did to Agatha, and they had only wanted to tell Norman how to stop it.

* SchizoTech: A lot of the scenery and vehicles have a distinct look of being from TheSeventies, especially the Babcock's station wagon and Mitch's van. Also, all the TV's are old-style CRT. Nonetheless, even the kids have pre-smart cell phones and they use the internet to search for information about the witch.

* AsideGlance: InUniverse. The actress in the cheesy zombie movie Norman watches screams at her attacker, stops to cast an annoyed look off-camera (presumably at the director), and then screams again.

* BadBadActing: The kids in the school pageant speak with such unenthusiastic monotone, that Norman's prophetic outburst if anything made it a thousand times better.

%% * BlackComedy

** Neil.

** Alvin couldn't even ''spell his '''own''' name''.

* BrickJoke: The cheesy zombie flick Norman watches in the opening cuts away just as the girl is attacked by the zombie. At the BookEnds ending, the now zombified girl is briefly seen munching on a severed limb.

* CamelCase: [=ParaNorman=].

* CelestialDeadline: Norman was supposed to read from the book at the witch's grave before sunset.

* ComicallyMissingThePoint: When Mitch accidentally runs over a zombie, the head comes to life and growls at him. He freaks out and kicks it. When he gets back in the car, Courtney and the others are freaking out over a man apparently coming back to life, Mitch is more impressed by [[LovableJock how far he kicked the zombie's head]].

** Judge Hopkins is a deconstruction of the HangingJudge, as he legitimately did [[IDidWhatIHadToDo what he thought was best]] and his decision wasn't motivated by sadism or cruelty, but by a values system that [[ValuesDissonance all the people of Blithe Hollow agreed with.]] He's also a deconstruction of the stereotypical zombie characters, he and his fellow zombies have come to regret their actions over the [[FateWorseThanDeath hundreds of years]] they've been dead, and in the climax, it's ''[[{{Irony}} the zombies]]'' who flee in terror from the hordes of [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters bloodthirsty townspeople.]]

** The townspeople of Blithe Hollow are shown to be NotSoDifferent from the zombies, reacting to their appearance with extreme violence and aggression. Thanks to modern technology and a massive numbers advantage, [[RealityEnsues the townspeople pose far more of a threat to the slow-moving, shambling zombies than the zombies do to them]]. Their lynch-mob mentality gets so bad that they actively try to ''[[WouldHurtAChild kill]]'' Norman, who's only a child, just for being different -- [[HistoryRepeats exactly like]] the zombies when they were alive.

* EnfantTerrible: A extra animated as a little girl tears off a zombie's arm and later on lights her teddy bear on fire in order to set the town hall alight.

** The practice for the school play, especially the line about the portrayal of the witch not being historically accurate.

** Mitch's total lack of response to Courtney's flirting is a hint that he's not into ''[[StraightGay any]]'' women.

* GenreDeconstruction: Oh boy a lot. Zombies come back from the dead to wreak havoc on a sleepy town thanks to a witch's curse. Except the witch was an innocent little girl, the zombies are completely harmless and rather pathetic compared to anything in Norman's horror movies, and the town uses the little girl's trial and hanging to pull in tourists and sell cheesy merchandise.

* HeroicBSOD: Norman has a psychotic break when he learns that the witch was eleven years old when she died and the witchcraft she was accused of was the ability to talk to ghosts.

* {{Irony}}: "Spelling Bee next Wensday"
** Also pointed out by Neil, whose dog was ran over by an animal rescue truck.
** Alvin breaking into the library with the aid of a sandwich board advertising a 'crime prevention seminar'
** Agatha meant for the curse to hurt the 7 zombie puritans, but it didn't stop there; it almost go her descendant Norman killed by the townsfolk who feared him, almost like she was.
*** Also, she 'cursed' the 7 puritans in order for "everyone to see how rotten [puritans] were". Instead, something got lost in translation and the modern townsfolk think the puritan zombies are products of the curse rather than Aggie's generalization of puritans.

* JacobMarleyWarning: An example pretty close to the original since it is also about damned souls serving as a warning for the living about the horrific fate awaiting them after death if they make the same choices in life.

** Old Man Prenderghast, as well.

* NotUsingTheZWord: Subverted. Courtney uses it but Norman tells her not to use "the z-word."

* OurGhostsAreDifferent: Agatha Prenderghast has very [[ShockAndAwe interesting]] powers. However, she's the only one -- all the other ghosts are talkative at best.

* PoorMansPorn: Neil enjoys looking at his mother's aerobics instruction tape.

* PopularIsDumb: Courtney is a [[TheCheerleader cheerleader]] and Mitch is a [[DumbJock jock]].

** Thanks to modern technology and a massive numbers advantage, the townspeople pose ''far'' more of a danger to the zombies than the zombies do to them. In fact, throughout most of the climax it's the ''[[{{Irony}} zombies]]'' who are running from the [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters humans]] than the other way around. It turns out that this was exactly the nature of the curse; to make the jury rise from the dead and be completely helpless against the humans. The living weren't being cursed nearly as much as the small group of people who condemned the witch.

* SchizoTech: A lot of the scenery and vehicles have a distinct look of being from TheSeventies, especially the Babcock's station wagon and Mitch's van. Also, all the TV's are old-style CRT. Nonetheless, even the kids have cell phones and they use the internet to search for information about the witch.

* SignsOfDisrepair: At one point the "Witchy Weiners" sign falls down... and the W in Witchy goes out.

* StraightGay: Turns out Mitch is gay.

* TakeThat: "What are you thinking; firing at civilians?! That's for the police to do!"
* TalkingTheMonsterToDeath: Norman puts Aggie's soul at rest, through simple discussion and reasoning.

* TemptingFate: When the Witch's Ghost is wreaking havoc amongst the town, Norman's mother, Sandra, asks her husband, Perry, if it has anything to do with Norman.

* VillainousBreakdown: ''"I don't like this story!"''
* TheVoiceless: All the zombies, except for the Judge, who can be understood by Norman.
* WellDoneSonGuy: Norman, with his dad literally saying "well done son." near the end of the movie.

** In the opening scene, we're introduced to Norman's grandmother and all seems normal, but when he passes on her request about the thermostat to his father, he angrily chews him out for saying like that since [[DeadAllAlong she died a while ago]], establishing Norman's ghost-seeing powers in a rather abrupt manner.
** One of Norman's magic-induced flashbacks makes a ''girlish sob'' into a WhamLine of epic proportions.

** After Norman calms the witch: "Aggie... My name was Aggie..."
** Also this bit.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: '''Subverted''', see "GivingThemTheStrip" above.

** Played straight before the final confrontation. Agatha uses trees to trap and separate Norman's family, then attempts to use spiked roots to impale Norman.

* WideEyesAndShrunkenIrises: Realistically done and a really nice touch to TheReveal. When Norman gets a vision of the Blithe Hollow witch trial, he doesn't see the accused, until he hears someone crying from behind him. [[http://24.media.tumblr.com/aae5a8e4e6905839705f4fc7936e5bec/tumblr_mi4kbtVSnl1qhdexto2_500.gif His eyes widen in shock]] and he turns around to see Agatha, the "witch" of Blithe Hollow, is a girl his age.

** Thanks to modern technology and a massive numbers advantage, the townspeople pose ''far'' more of a danger to the zombies than the zombies do to them. In fact, throughout most of the climax it's the ''[[{{Irony}} zombies]]'' who are running from the [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters humans]] than the other way around.