“Everyone has demons…mine just have names”

It always feels like a major event when a beloved and acclaimed auteur returns to filmmaking after a lengthy break. Whether it was a case of reneging on a previously-announced retirement, or the fact that they couldn’t acquire either inspiration or financial means to make another film for a while (an unfortunate reality for far too many artists, but something that is slowly improving in an era where nostalgia and the accessibility of media are actually working in tandem to do something positive), there’s something special about seeing the return of a great artist. When it comes to contemporary animation, few filmmakers hold as enormous a reputation as Henry Selick, who is seen as one of the pioneers of stop-motion animation, and someone who is responsible for the careers of many directors and animators that were inspired by his work. Despite having a career that is composed of less than half a dozen feature-length films, and an array of short-form productions, he’s ascended to the status as one of the medium’s great masters, primarily for his wicked sense of humour and gorgeous aesthetic perspective. Over a decade since his last film (the beloved Coraline, which remains a brilliant and subversive masterpiece), he has entered into the cultural consciousness again with Wendell & Wild, his most recent offering that he developed in conjunction with modern horror maestro Jordan Peele, who helped bring Selick’s vision to screen in more ways than one. This film was always going to be extraordinary, but the collision of so many creative voices elevates it to the status of being amongst the year’s most intriguing and captivating surprises, and a welcome return to one of the great masters of his craft, who is at his peak while cobbling together this terrific and captivating film.

While the industry has seemingly been flooded with attempts to reconcile two seemingly incompatible ideas, the genre of family-friendly horror is a relatively new concept, with attempts to make films that can be enjoyed by a much wider portion of the population being relatively unprecedented only a few decades ago. It’s difficult to tell when it became popular to make films that were targeted at terrifying the whole family, but Selick was one of the pioneers of the genre, with The Nightmare Before Christmas being the gold standard for this kind of accessible horror. He continued to work in the genre on a couple more occasions, clearly feeling a kinship to this style of making films that can be enjoyed by everyone, regardless of their age. Wendell & Wild continues this streak, and it may be his scariest film yet – but it remains as endearing and captivating as anything else he made, particularly since it contains all of the qualities we have grown to love from his work. However, Selick is also not someone who rests on his laurels, and his primary motivation to make films has always been to experiment, attempting to shatter boundaries of what we previously imagined was possible with stop-motion animation, and infusing his stories with new ideas that make them revolutionary in many ways. Wendell & Wild contains many exceptionally progressive ideas, many of which are ingrained in the details that recur throughout the film. As many have noted, this film contains the first openly transgender male character in a mainstream animated film – and most importantly, it is never treated as a point of contention or an issue through which the entire film is filtered. It is an objective, straightforward fact that may be small, but adds invaluable levels of visibility, and shows a forward-thinking mentality that has been one of the director’s trademarks throughout his career, and even when not dealing with social matters directly, there’s an ingenuity to Selick’s films that make them feel so profoundly modern and heartfelt.

We often don’t realize the amount of effort that goes into making these films, and considering the length of time that Selick and his team take to make these films, it is clearly nothing short of a labour of love for the director, who literally handcrafts his stories from the most abstract ideas, bringing them to life with wit and exuberance, which are the primary propellants that make these films intergenerational touchstones, works that can be appreciated and embraced by anyone, since there is something so unifying about these stories. There are a few themes that are universal, and which the animation industry has frequently picked up on when constructing their stories – family, identity and the value of friendship are all topics that resonate with a large portion of the population, and are easy to adapt to a particular story. Yet, under Selick’s direction, it never feels forced – every emotion comes across with genuine earnestness and an abundance of authenticity, which bring these stories to life in a way that feels honest and realistic, even when they’re dealing with very abstract concepts. The director works closely with Peele to create a film that celebrates diversity with as much passion as it does the peculiar horror-themed narrative that drives the story – and Peele is an artist whose work has always represented finding the balance between social commentary and entertainment, meaning that there are often messages at the heart of his films, but they come through in a way that is clear but not heavy-handed. It’s unlikely that we’ll walk away from a film like Wendell & Wild and not be both entertained and provoked in a way that is constructive and meaningful. It doesn’t distract from the pure enjoyment we get from seeing Selick in his element, but it adds emotional depth that many recent animated films have been lacking, primarily because there seems to be a belief that governs the industry, whereby every film needs to have overwrought moments designed to stir emotion, which are often effective, but sometimes tend to feel inauthentic – there is not a single false note to be found anywhere in Wendell & Wild, which is one of its most distinct qualities, since if a film is going to celebrate individuality, it might as well do so in a way that has genuine meaning at its heart.

Yet, Wendell & Wild is not a film that aims to perpetually remind us of its reasons for existing or justify its perspective – if anything, it goes to extraordinary lengths to immerse us in this world, hoping that we can suspend disbelief long enough to engage with this story and escape from reality for a couple of hours by presenting us with this peculiar but captivating story, which is a sewn together from ideas conceived by one of our most undeniably imaginative artists of the past several decades. We can unpack every moment of this film and dissect them for philosophical and socio-cultural commentary, but that does a great disservice to the pure creativity that accompanies the story. There are several moments in Wendell & Wild where we are so entranced by the spell of this film, we forget that we are watching a fictional construction of the world, and not witnessing some alternate reality. It is just a credit to Selick’s genius that he is able to be innovative enough to create an entire world from seemingly nothing but a few models (which may sound reductive and dismissive of the mastery that goes into stop-motion animation, when in reality it is enormous praise, considering the amount of work needed to put this film together), which become the foundation for the spirited and endearing story that we are invited to observe. He’s also helped by an impeccable cast, which includes Peele and his regular collaborator Keegan-Michael Key (as the titular demons), as well as Lyric Ross, Angela Bassett, James Hong and Sam Zelaya, all of whom lend their vocal talents to bringing this story to life, assimilating flawlessly into the gorgeous, well-crafted version of the world that Selick so meticulously pieces together.

Wendell & Wild is a wonderful film for a number of reasons. Primarily, it signals the return for one of our greatest living filmmakers, an individual who redefined the boundaries of animation and established the standard for stop-motion filmmaking, which has been heavily inspired by his work. This film embodies that virtue of giving artists both free reign to make the films they desire, and the benefit of the doubt that the final product will be worth watching, and few have used this freedom with more sincerity and audacity than Selick, whose incredible career is a testament to his enormous talents and ability to tell stories that are always captivating and intriguing. However, even more than this, Wendell & Wild represents a shift in modern animation – its the perfect intersection in terms of audience, since those who are familiar with Selick’s work (either growing up with his earlier films, or revisiting them in our older years) will have the opportunity to fawn over another delightfully deranged curio of a film, while younger viewers will be given their first encounter with the director’s work – and on both accounts, this film is unlike anything we’ve ever seen before, with the absolutely stunning animation (possibly the most gorgeous that Selick has ever produced – the fact that he chose to do this as a stop-motion film, even when technology is freely available, is a credit to his immense artistic vision) and the unique and heartbreakingly beautiful narrative giving us an experience like no other. Wendell & Wild is one of the year’s most profoundly striking films in both form and content, carrying a significance and gravity more than many contemporary animated works – and it all becomes so overwhelmingly beautiful, we can’t help but be utterly spellbound by this astonishing film, which is a deeply melancholy, bitingly funny and genuinely sentimental combination of horror and coming-of-age comedy, all produced under the watchful eye of one of the most important animators of his generation, who has been given the chance to tell another story – and now that he’s back, we have to wonder what he’ll choose as the foundation for his next charming and captivating flight of fancy – and if Wendell & Wild is anything to go by, he certainly has yet to run out of brilliant ideas.