Welcome to The Morning After, where I share with you what movies I’ve seen over the past week. Below, you will find short reviews of those movies along with a star rating. Full length reviews may come at a later date.

So, here is what I watched this past week:

Wendell & Wild

The man who redefined how stop-motion animation could be used artistically, Henry Selick, is back. Several years after Coraline further redefined the medium, Selick finally picked up a camera again. With visionary horror filmmaker Jordan Peele, he has created the first feature film in the stop-motion format to center on a Black protagonist. Wendell & Wild is about young Kat (voiced by Lyric Ross) whose parents (Gary Gatewood & Gabrielle Dennis) die in a car accident when their vehicle plunges into a lake on their way home. Blaming herself, getting into trouble, and then ending up in the court system, Kat is shunted from one second chance school to another until she lands in a facility in the mountains above the small town where she grew up.

There, she discovers that she is a Hellmaiden who can summon demons into the real world. Her personal demons (Keegan-Michael Key and Peele) convince her to rescue them from their demonic prison in exchange for bringing her parents back to life. Mischief ensues. There are several plot lines interweaving here, which gives the film a lot of weight. While the film is more than just about the threat of for-profit prison ventures, that foundation helps ground the film in a horrific reality for a lot of Black men and women. It doesn’t dig too deeply into the issues that surround such efforts, but it circles them near enough to add depth to the material.

Selick’s appreciation for the macabre is well known based on the look of his prior films. Wendell & Wild starts off employing some of the techniques viewers may be familiar with from films like Coraline and The Nightmare Before Christmas, but eventually, the film settles into a fascinating rhythm of originality and we’re delightfully drawn in for the ride. In spite of involving some darker elements of the paranormal, the film is relatively lighthearted and suitable for younger audiences who can handle those moments.

The voice cast is superb, notably Ross, Key & Peele, Angela Bassett as a mysterious nun at the school Kat ends up at, and James Hong as the facility’s administrator. It’s also one of few films that feature a trans character without making a huge deal out of their transition. He exists and is accepted without question with only one early reference to his transition, which his supportive mother shuts down easily. The film is fairly progressive, has emotional heft, and asks challenging questions. While it feels very familiar at first, the screenplay travels its expected paths towards a conclusion that is well crafted and emotionally fulfilling.