John Carpenter is the horror master, but Henry Selick is the master of kid-friendly horror. The director of The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach (that rhino in the clouds terrified me as a kid), and Coraline returns with his first film in 13 years with Wendell and Wild. The stop-motion horror comedy stars Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, who also co-wrote the script with Selick, as a pair of demon brothers who trick a teenager (voiced by Lyric Ross) into bringing them into the land of the living.
“Everything changed and evolved once we got in business together,” Selick said about working with Peele at New York Comic Con. “[Peele] convinced me that the protagonist should be young Kat Elliot… He convinced me Kat needed to be a person of color.” He continued, “Jordan said when he was a kid, it upset him when he’d see animated films where there was no one onscreen who looks like him. That sort of unlocked a door.”
You can watch the trailer above. Here’s the official plot synopsis:
Director, Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas and Coraline) and producer Jordan Peele (Nope, Us, Get Out) team up to bring us a phantasmic thrill ride in the new stop-animation feature, Wendell and Wild. The titular characters, a pair of demon brothers played by comedy icons Key & Peele trick troubled teen, Kat Elliott (Lyric Ross), into bringing them from the underworld into the land of the living and mayhem ensues.
Wendell and Wild comes to Netflix on October 28.