ParaNorman

Okay yes there are jump scenes, but what's great is the zombies, ghost's aren't scary looking, they come off comical. My 4 yr old laughed so much. He enjoyed this movie more than Brave. It all depends on your child of course. To me Coraline was more dark. This movie is a great movie, and my 4 yr old loved it , and wants to see it again. I don't agree with the above review that " frightful zombies with body parts flapping and falling off" They are very comical.

It is going to be as scary as Coraline and the jump scenes level are going to be very high. Coraline focused on releasing psychological terror and yet it was a kids' movie. This is going to have more comedy than horror. But this will have more jump scares, so if you have kids that are sensitive to them (like me), I suggest you go to Blockbuster and rent Coraline. That is very scary too but apparently a lot of kids can handle it and enjoy it. *UPDATE* 8/18/12 I have now seen the movie and I will just say that it is not as scary as Coraline - AT ALL. Coraline will give me nightmares for 1 month if I watch it the 10th time or something, and this movie, the 1st time I watch it, I won't have nightmares about it for even a second. Sure, there are jumpy scenes, but still, it lacks that genuine and extreme terror that Coraline had. This one had so much more humor (Coraline was very serious) and this one doesn't actually relate to real life (much of the terror in Coraline was how it actually related to real life, the whole process of abducting children). That being said, this was a very good movie. It had emotion in it, which Coraline lacked, and the stop-motion animation was still fresh, clear, and showed a lot of effort. The humor level was from light laughs to bursting. The screenplay was pretty okay, I guess. Now on to the parental review. In the end, there are strong positive messages. It will probably have an impact on most people. Good role models are present. There is a moderate amount of violence present, with zombies attacking the town and stuff like that. There are about 2 jump scenes. Some children may be scared of some villains. There is also some disturbing/scary imagery. There is some suggestive humor, most of it is implied. There are some mild obscenities and a parent sitting next to me gasped at some obscenities. In one scene, you can clearly see a man that looks messed up that grabs a lot of pills and pops them in his mouth, but that is not a main point of the scene at all. Overall, I suggest you watch this. It should be less scary than Coraline for your kids and a great start for watching horror movies.

It will scare the pants off kids

What's scary -- and what's too scary -- can be very individual. While I probably would have been utterly freaked out by a movie like this when I was a kid, my 9-year-old LOVED Paranorman, and I also appreciate it. Once you get past the creepy crawlies (of which there are plenty), Paranorman is a movie with its heart in the right place. Norman, a kid who sees and talks to ghosts, has to use his dubious gift to save the town from a threat no one else really believes in: a curse laid on the town during a colonial witch-hunt. Meanwhile, Norman is something of a witch-hunt victim himself. Branded a "freak," Norman is bullied at school and misunderstood at home. The nastiness of his peers is very believable; children who are dealing with bullies or feeling isolated at school may either find this comfortingly "relatable" or too close for comfort. At first Norman's isolation makes him angry at the world, but a sweet-natured fellow outcast, Neil, insists on befriending him and remains loyal through all the strange events of the movie. Neil's nonaggressive response to bullies and loyal friendship toward Norman establish a subtle but important moral grounding that runs through the whole movie: others may do evil, but doing evil in return doesn't help anything. I believe this is a powerful and much-neglected message that is worth a few gross-outs to encounter. Ultimately, despite the yucky severed arms, this isn't a movie about fighting zombies: as unlikely as it seems, Paranorman is a movie about understanding and forgiveness. I recommend it highly to strong-stomached adults, teens, and tweens.