Hollywood Popular Artists

Jul 25th 2012, 19:30

The "Paranorman" trailer might have sold you on the movie based on its awesome stop motion animation and supernatural inspiration, but apparently we haven't seen anything yet. MTV News caught up with stars Anna Kendrick, Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Kodi Smit-McPhee while they were promoting the movie at Comic-Con, and they promised that "ParaNorman" is much more than meets the eye.

"The trailer, it sets up a really great story but there's so much more," Kendrick said. "It's not just like the zombie invasion and how do we stop the zombie invasion? There's so many layers to the story. When I saw the finished thing, I was watching it and I was thinking, 'I forgot about this part of the story!' It's so layered and there's such a great history behind each little piece of mythology, and it kind of all traces back to this place where you don't really expect it to go and it's really beautiful."

The trio agreed that "the third act [of the film] is insane," and veers away from the movie's expected plot. That's an element of "ParaNorman" that likely isn't teased in the trailers, and Smit-McPhee said the final act of the movie its best part.

"It gives you chills. Just the music, the sounds and everything together, the effects. It's just crazy," he said.

If you've seen any clips from the movie, then you've probably noticed that main characters Norman, Alvin and Courtney don't sound too much like Smit-McPhee, Mintz-Plasse and Kendrick. The trio admitted that they all made very intentional decisions to make their character voices sound different from their normal onces.

"I just tried to imagine the voice that I used as a 16-year-old when I would like get in fights with my mom. You know, that part of yourself that you just hate and you want to go and hug your mom? So I tried to channel that awful part of my life," Kendrick said.

Mintz-Plasse didn't have to put as much effort in, saying. "When they came to me, they just offered me the role of a bully which was very surprising because I've never had that in the past, but I went in and just sort of created a voice on the spot in front of them to see if they liked it, and they did and it works for the movie and it's used."

But it was Smit-McPhee who had it easiest. He didn't have to change his voice too much because he was just a kid when he filmed "ParaNorman." Unfortunately, he underwent some major body transformations during the recording process and now says he'll never be able to talk in Norman's voice again.

"I just had a really high-pitched voice so I made it higher. Turns out at the end of it my voice dropped and I can't do that voice anymore. It's a bit sad," he said. "We literally were on the last session and were like, 'Well, this is awkward. Can't even record this anymore.' So yeah, we got it perfect timing."

"ParaNorman" hits theaters on August 17.

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