Henry Selick is one of modern animation’s zaniest visionaries, and following a 13-year hiatus, he returns—teaming with Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key—for Wendell & Wild, a phenomenal phantasmagoria that blends the dark, demented inventiveness of his prior work with the ribald humor and spiky sociopolitical commentary of the comedy duo. So ingenious that its only shortcoming is an overabundance of ideas, it’s a stop-motion triumph for the director, and will be a feather in Netflix’s 2022 cap when—after its premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival—it debuts on the streaming platform on October 28.
As with Coraline and The Nightmare Before Christmas, Selick’s Wendell & Wild is a macabre tale of demonic dimensions populated by the dead and deviant; of plucky heroes damaged by tragedy and coping with fractured families; of friendships forged through trial and tribulation; and of carnivalesque madness involving squishy insectoids, goofy dancing skeletons, and all manner of additional otherworldly sights. Selick’s brand is madcap spookiness underscored by grief, anger and longing, and his latest delivers that in spades, almost to the point of bursting from distension. It’s difficult to envision younger viewers keeping track of every crazily intertwined plot strand featured in this odyssey, which races, veers and loop-de-loops like one of Hell’s rollercoasters. Yet Selick has never been one to pander or coddle, and anyway, there’s so much imagination on display that multiple viewings will be more than welcome.
Wendell & Wild is scripted by Selick and Peele, who also pulls double-duty reuniting with Key to voice the down-on-their-luck title demons, who are stuck in a nether-realm where they’ve been sentenced to apply magical hair-regrowth cream to the balding head of their father and overlord Buffalo Belzer (Ving Rhames), a satanic goliath whose stomach is the platform for a Scream Faire frequented by endlessly shrieking souls. Slender Wendell (Key) and portly Wild (Peele) are comical sad sacks who yearn to escape their eternal bondage and raise enough money to construct their own cheerier Dream Faire, and they get their shot courtesy of Kat (Lyric Ross), a human girl whom they meet through mysterious means. As it turns out, when Kat comes into contact with a shapeshifting octopus, her hand becomes emblazoned with a skull’s mouth that grants her extraordinary powers, revealing her to be a Hellmaiden.
As laid out by a poignant prologue, Kat lost her brewery-owning parents in a car accident years earlier, which she still blames herself for causing. In the aftermath of stints in miserable foster homes and a violent accident that sent her to juvie, the 13-year-old Kat winds up at Rust Bank Catholic high school, where she’s watched by Sister Helley (Angela Bassett), clashes with a clique of (reasonably friendly) popular girls, and befriends trans artist Raul (Sam Zelaya). Like her new acquaintance, Kat is an outcast, and an abrasive one at that. With giant black platform boots, a plaid skirt held together with clothes pins, nose and eyebrow piercings, and two big poofs of hair atop her oval head, Kat is a budding riot grrrl, and Wendell & Wild thrums with her punk attitude, amplified by a soundtrack of buzzy guitar-driven cuts such as Bad Brains’ “How Low Can a Punk Get” and Living Colour’s “Cult of Personality.”
Wendell & Wild’s convoluted story concerns RCA’s creepy headmaster Father Bests (James Hong) aligning with local Klax Korp to rebuild the gone-to-seed town of Rust Bank—which was destroyed in a fire that Raul’s mom suspects was started by the corporation—by constructing private prisons that will make them a mint. That partnership eventually crisscrosses with Wendell and Wild once Kat summons them to the real world in order to bring her parents back to life (which the pair plan to do with their regenerative hair cream). Once free, however, Wendell and Wild strike out on their own, only to entangle themselves in conflicting human affairs. Selick and Peele’s script zigs and zags at hyper-speed, and sometimes, the connective tissue between its various threads wears a bit thin. Still, the sheer bravado of their storytelling generally carries the day, enlivening this saga as it gallops toward a finale of weird resurrections, heartfelt reunions, and combative demonstrations.
Selick’s CGI-enhanced stop-motion is a predictable marvel, full of spiraling and curlicuing designs, exaggerated angular and rotund faces and bodies, and helter-skelter mayhem that leaps and zooms around the bustling frame. Wendell & Wild is so gorgeous that it would likely enthrall even with the sound turned off, although that would deny one the pleasure of Key and Peele’s amusingly zesty dynamic as the clownish brothers. The comedians’ daffy rapport is Laurel and Hardy-esque, and their lunacy helps lends the action its wacko personality. They’re accompanied by solid turns from, among others, Rhames, Bassett and the legendary Hong, whose vocal performances boast a vibrancy that matches the film’s rambunctiousness. Better yet, Ross exudes a moving measure of soulfulness, allowing Kat’s fury and despair to remain at the forefront no matter the material’s habit of splitting its attention between many manic points of interest.
There’s also a lot slimy, splattery goo and unnerving grotesqueries sprinkled throughout Wendell & Wild, which never forgets to be frenetically freaky. Selick is a master at melding the odd and the enchanting, and at succinctly and hauntingly visualizing not only traumatic incidents but the way in which those traumas feel—as with a memory monster that Kat must learn to defeat with compassion and acceptance. His artistry is further enlivened by what one can assume are Peele’s political contributions, be it a collection of multicultural characters, Klax Korp’s for-profit prison plot or Kat and company’s effort to thwart that scheme through activist protest. In its cacophonous conclusion, the film contends that holding onto the past—or lost loved ones—is ultimately impossible, but that radically changing the world is less far-fetched so long as an activist spirit remains alive. If Selick and Peele hope to impart the virtue of social engagement and defiance, one can imagine their Wendell & Wild inspiring would-be live-action and animated storytellers as well.
