Henry Selick Is Back For More Spooky Fun with Wendell & Wild

Movies have long been an important part of the Halloween season, and director Henry Selick has been a fixture of the holiday since 1993 when The Nightmare Before Christmas first came to theaters. 29 years later, the collaboration between Selick and Tim Burton is still watched by millions every year. Selick cemented his status as a staple of the season in 2009 with Coraline, the animated adaptation of Neil Gaiman novel. Now, the latest master of the macabre to join forces with Selick is none other than Jordan Peele, as they bring us the stop motion, horror comedy Wendell & Wild.

“I’ve always been attracted to spooky, scary things that you’re not gonna forget,” Selick says. The 69-year-old filmmaker, whose imagination was captured as a child by the works of visual effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen began his career as an animator trainee at Disney and found his niche by mixing the dark and creepy with a whimsical sense of colorful fun. “It’s just sort of my jam,” Selick says. Wendell & Wild is the story of two demon brothers, Wendell (Keegan-Michael Key) and Wild (Peele), who find their ticket out of the underworld in the form of Kat Elliot (Lyric Ross, This is Us), a troubled teen who lost her parents in a tragic accident and whose quest to be reunited with them led to experimenting with dark forces. The young “Hellmaiden” is the only person who can summon the brothers to the Land of the Living. 

“We were looking to anchor the film in a few spots with something real, because it’s so much fantasy, horror, drama, but it’s all kind of made up stuff.” 

Selick’s basic concept for Wendell & Wild came from a seemingly unlikely place. “It began 20 years ago, when my grown sons were little and acting like demons,” Selick says. “George in particular, the younger one, could be frighteningly demonic at times, like all kids can be. But I did a sketch of them as demon brothers, and then I wrote a story.” The idea remained in limbo for years until Selick was again inspired by another rambunctious pair whom he thought could bring life to the characters when he became a big fan of the sketch comedy series Key and Peele. “Keegan Michael Key and Jordan Peele are probably the best sketch comedy artists of all time,” Selick says. The duo’s ability to convincingly play characters of any age, gender and ethnicity, as well as their insightfully subversive way using humor to make a point, captured Selick’s imagination, and by the time the third season of the show came around, Selick decided to make his move. ”I just had to reach out and say, ‘Would you consider working with me?’” Selick says. 

While both Key and Peele needed little persuading, committing to acting in the project almost instantly, it was Peele, the acclaimed writer-director of Get Out and Nope, whose imagination was especially ignited by the project. “He is a huge fan of stop motion, knew my work, and he came on as a collaborator—a producer and a co-writer,” Selick says. Peele was instrumental in helping take the original skeleton of a story and turning it into the film that premieres on Netflix on October 28. 

One of Peele’s contributions was in helping balance the story with a social conscience: the PG-13 rated Wendell & Wild deals with some heavy issues for an animated film, including corruption in the privatized prison system which includes systemic racism, as well childhood trauma and juvenile incarceration. “I think we got the balance right,” Selick says. “We were looking to anchor the film in a few spots with something real, because it’s so much fantasy, horror, drama, but it’s all kind of made up stuff.” 

“I’ve always been attracted to spooky, scary things that you’re not gonna forget. It’s just sort of my jam.”

Selick leaned heavily on the expertise of his wife, Heather Selick, who worked for 10 years with at-risk youth. “She was an advocate for special needs kids,” Selick says. “Kids in trouble, kids that could be on the school to prison pipeline. So, through her work I was kind of aware of the juvie system in our country and how kids as young as eight are treated like hardened criminals.” The villains of the film, the Klaxons, were originally fairly generic land grabbers who tore down old properties to make way for new buildings, but Selick and Peele decided that they needed more. “So they became builders of private prisons, which a lot of people don’t even know about, and I wanted to share that,” Selick says. “Jordan was really good at determining how much of this is good for the film and then how much is making it like a message movie and might turn off some people,” Selick says, though he still hopes that the film’s handling of these weighty topics serves as a basis for thoughtful discussion.

Wendell & Wild is another triumph for a visionary talent, and for many, the movie event of the Halloween season. As the darkness begins to fall this weekend, grab your popcorn and your trick or treat candy, curl up together on the couch and turn on Netflix for a funny and thrilling moviegoing experience that’s not quite like anything you’ve seen before.

More from Patrick Gibbs:
Film Review: All Quiet on the Western Front
Film Review: Till