The Boxtrolls

This may be the most absurdly grotesque - or grotesquely absurd? - kids film I've seen since Babe 2: Pig in the City.

still haven't seen it. seems to have hit theaters and immediately vanished from marketing despite pretty good reviews.

It is some daaaaaaark stuff.

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/rV76Pt4usO0/0.jpg

This horrifying guy is the closest it comes to comic relief:

http://38.media.tumblr.com/7df34e7d2efd273bee612e67e17d4014/tumblr_n5h5481FuO1rq2e4to1_500.png

The Ilxtrolls

Good movie. The ending is indeed pretty grotesque.

Amazed at the mediocre-to-shitty reviews of this film. Saw it last night and it's excellent. The art and animation is outstanding. The characters, especially the villains, were brilliant. Maybe the protagonists were a little dull, but the attention to detail and action sequences especially more than made up for it.

I did think it was so grim and gloomy I doubt I'd ever want to revisit.

really? gosh.

It did look awesome. But this one was like the polar opposite of the also awesome looking "Book of Life," which is so bright and colorful.

This must have been promoted pretty heavily because there was an extended trailer for it when I took my kids to see the Lego Movie. The trailer made it look like the worst kind of awful.

Gotta say I really liked the (moderate) Dickensian griminess of the thing; found it quite whimsical in its own way. Book of Life looks gaudy by comparison. Boxtrolls takes a fair amount of risks too - some quite graphic depictions of violence for a kids' film, but never gratuitous or ill-earned. Good moral/socio-political commentary too. And plenty of moments that had me laughing as well. The physics of it are great too - really weighty, satisfying feeling to the animation model and the 'world building' in that universe.

that said, like Coraline I'd say it's a better film for adults than kids. I wouldn't be comfortable showing either of these to children under 8 or 9 years.

my 9 year old dug it. so did i. such elaborate sets.

i don't think either one of us thought it was dark?

Coraline the one and only movie that seriously traumatized my oldest kid, Rufus. when he was younger. whenever it came out. he couldn't even look at the dvd box.

yeah the whole button-eye-mum and zombie dad bit frightened me and I was 28 when it came out.

But I didn't really find Boxtrolls nearly as dark as Coraline. It was infinitely more memorable than Paranorman (which I remember extremely little about). Still thinking about it today, Boxtrolls that is, especially how good the Ben Kingsley character was. I thought it was Timothy Spall at first though.

The button-eyed parents really freaked my son out and then the next year was when Lalaloopsy was launched and those commercials were all over the tv, setting him on edge.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-mhuWI_aHmEc/T3k_80ME4DI/AAAAAAAAAQY/fVlUyVgl5RQ/coraline-creepy-button-eyes.jpg
http://lalaloopsydollhouse.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Queenie-Red-Heart.jpg

my son first saw Coraline when he was five and loved it. One time his slightly older cousin was over (I think she was 6 at the time) and he wanted to watch it with her and it really scared her a lot.

I would guess that Laika is probably my son's favorite movie studio (or it would be, if he understood what a movie studio was). He's watched both Coraline and Paranorman many times and loved box trolls when we went to see it.

He asked me to cut holes into a large box we had lying around so he could dress up as a box troll. I proceeded to call him "Windshield Washer Fluid" for the rest of the day.

My 6 year old LOVED Boxtrolls, and I didn't feel it was too dark for him, but he's also a huge Nightmare Before Christmas fan. He's kind of Edward Gorey at heart.

>>> I thought it was Timothy Spall at first though.

^^^ me too, totally! I got the sense the voice characterization must have been pitched to Kingsley as Spall-esque.

So, Boxtroll fans - why the whole crossdressing subplot? What did that have to do with anything?

I proceeded to call him "Windshield Washer Fluid" for the rest of the day

lol this is so great! My kid already wants to be a boxtroll next Halloween.

The crossdressing was a bit of an off note yeah.
I guess there was an obvious allegory about popular media in there and how the trollcatcher himself was propagandising the entire town to believe the trolls were evil while cosying up to the town's magistrates / using titillation to do so, despite the disguises being so obvious.
could have been done differently though.

This is on Netflix streaming now.

This is great