“Wendell & Wild” Review: “The Nightmare Before Christmas” Director + Key And Peele Deliver A Halloween Treat

It’s been far too long since we’ve been graced by the twisted brilliance of Sir Henry Selick! While many of us were still in diapers, this man was busy conjuring up childhood nightmare fuel with films like “The Nightmare Before Christmas” and “James and the Giant Peach”. Then in 2009, in collaboration with the stop-motion animation company Laika Studios, he brought us his magnum opus: “Coraline”. A horror adventure animated film so creepy that we dare you to watch it alone at night. We don’t care how old you are, you will be checking your closet doors to ensure the Beldam isn’t hiding there. After over a decade of agonising wait, Selick returns with “Wendell & Wild”. A horror comedy animated film directed by Selick, and co-written alongside another master of horror Jordan Peele. Peele is nothing to scoff at either, he’s made a name for himself with socially conscious horror films like “Get Out”, “Us” and the recent “Nope”.

With these two wicked minds meeting, what terrifying thrills and macabre laughs do they have in store for us? Can “Wendell & Wild” live up to their stellar reputations? Or will it be less than the sum of both their parts? Let’s find out!

The plot of the film follows Kat Elliot, a troubled teen orphan haunted by the past tragedy of the death of her parents. When she’s sent to Rust Bank Catholic, a school for wayward teens, she soon realises that she’s been marked as a Hell Maiden due to her traumatic past, giving two demon brothers, Wendell and Wild, a way into the mortal plane. Madness ensues as the dead are raised, corporations make unholy deals and unexpected reunions are brought about.

Narratively speaking, “Wendell & Wild” is Selick’s most ambitious project yet. Peele and Selick have weaved together a complex tale with a number of fabulous moving parts. In its runtime of a little over an hour and a half, the film deals with issues of survivor’s guilt, corporate greed, trauma and the evils of the intersection between youth incarceration and the prison-industrial complex. Yeah, and it’s all in there for a kid’s animated film! We can see Peele’s handprints, and timely social commentary, all over the film. It’s a lot to unpackage and we applaud both of their valiant efforts…that being said, this is arguably Selick’s weakest film of his repertoire, which is saying a lot about his works because we love this film.

As a fun, coming-of-age dark fantasy animated comedy film, “Wendell & Wild” does a fantastic job but we can’t help but feel that its narrative scope compromised some of its more horror-based elements and leaves the plot a little too thin. It’s clear that a lot of time was lovingly placed into bringing the ghastly and ghoulish models of demons and the undead to life but we’re never given any to stop and smell the rotten roses. The film is going at a million miles an hour, either introducing new characters, setting up a joke or pushing the plot forward. There’s never really a moment, like in “Coraline”, that allows the audience to drink in the intricate setting and models on display.

Speaking of the aesthetics, we have to give utter props to the Netflix Animation team, Gotham Group, Peele’s Monkeypaw Production and company! It took them a while but they pulled together to produce a gorgeously animated film with a distinct art style that marries industrial grime with ethereal spooky ectoplasm! There’s just so much personality dripping in their character models that are reflected in their clothing, facial features and body shapes. There’s a magic to Selick’s work that is rather hard to replicate. Selick’s signature claymation style approach is heavily featured with moments of cutout and silhouette animation being used in scenes to add a layer of atmosphere.

Much like Selick’s other films, “Wendell and Wild” decided to go with his traditional stop-motion animation work but with the inclusion of the animation software Dragonframe to help the work go faster. It’s clear Selick has grown to include a great variety of styles in his approach to crafting characters, objects and environments. Again, it’s just such a shame that we never linger a little longer to spy and peek at the little ticks and minutiae in the background.

To fans of Comedy Central’s sketch series “Key & Peele”, you guys can rest assured that the pair still have their comedic edge as the demon brothers, Wendell and Wild. Their on-screen chemistry and delivery will have you rooting and cracking up over their characters. Keegan-Michael Key plays the straight man to Jordan Peele’s goofier Wild to great effect but honestly, if they have switched up the dynamic, it would have worked either way.  Lyric Ross delivers a strong performance as the angst-ridden and misunderstood Kat Elliot. While there are moments in which her character’s rebellious streak can be grating, Ross brings plenty of pluck and heart to the role. Enough to keep us engaged with Kat when Key and Peele aren’t chewing up the scenery.

There’s a star-studded cast this time around in Selick’s “Wendell & Wild” with top-tier actors filling the shoes of some hilariously memorable characters. We’ve got James Hong, who also plays Gong Gong in this year’s “Everything, Everywhere All at Once”, voicing the slimy Father Level Bests, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” actress Angela Bassett playing the caring Sister Helley and Ving Rhames from the “Mission: Impossible” film series as the big daddy demon, Buffalo Belzer. Everyone’s having a hell of a time and it shows. The film could have done with perhaps a half hour more to further flesh out some of the characters.

Henry Selick and Jordan Peele’s “Wendell & Wild” proves to be a highly-entertaining, sinister bit of Halloween fun. While it is light on scares and runtime, its talented cast and mature writing make this one of the more memorable original animated films on Netflix. If you’re a fan of stop-work animation and comedy, “Wendell & Wild” is one film you cannot miss this year! We hope Selick and Peele revisit this universe again, there’s a lot of potential for scarier sequels in the future.

For now, you can catch “Wendell & Wild” on Netflix today!