‘Wendell & Wild’
My third grader keeps begging me to watch horror films like “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” so I keep steering him to more kid-friendly scares like this 2022 stop-motion horror comedy from Henry Selick (“Coraline,” “The Nightmare Before Christmas”), a master of the whimsical macabre.
Here, we meet a lonely green-haired girl named Kat (voiced by Lyric Ross), who lost her parents in a car accident and spent years being shuffled through the juvenile justice system. Kat gets a “do-over” at a Catholic school where a protective nun named Sister Helley (Angela Bassett) knows Kat’s secret: that she’s a “hell maiden” who can communicate with demons. Two of these bumbling demons, Wendell (Keegan-Michael Key) and Wild (Jordan Peele, who wrote the screenplay with Selick), want to open an amusement park in the land of the living so they promise Kat they can bring her parents back from the dead if she helps them.
It’s a story of a grieving girl learning to open herself up to connection again. It’s best suited for tweens and up — or older elementary-age children who, like my son, are raring to watch the truly terrifying stuff.
‘Zombies 4: Dawn of the Vampires’
This Disney franchise, which started in 2018, is a little like “High School Musical” with monsters. In this installment, from 2025, Zed the zombie (Milo Manheim) and Addison (Meg Donnelly), who is part human, part alien, leave Mountain College on a road trip. Along for the ride are friends Eliza (Kylee Russell), also a zombie, and the werewolf Willa (Chandler Kinney). When their car crashes, they discover two warring factions, Vampires and Daywalkers, fighting over access to the “blood fruit” orchard because they need the nectar to survive. It’s up to Zed and Addison to show these rival groups that living in peace is possible.
There are over-the-top dance numbers and fight scenes that musical theater kids will eat up. And for tweens who love it when monsters flirt, the romance between a vampire named Victor (Malachi Barton) and a Daywalker named Nova (Freya Skye) should be a thrill. Paul Hoen returned here to direct his fourth film in the series. David Light, Joseph Raso and Josh Cagan wrote the screenplay.
‘The Curse of Bridge Hollow’
In this 2022 Netflix horror comedy, the teenager Sydney (Priah Ferguson from “Stranger Things”) moves with her family from her beloved Brooklyn to a historic New England town called Bridge Hollow. Her mother, Emily (Kelly Rowland), and father, Howard (Marlon Wayans), try to cheer her up, but she’s not having it. They get to town right before Halloween, but Howard doesn’t believe in observing the holiday because he’s a science teacher and apparently dressing up in costumes is unscientific.
They soon meet a neighbor named Sully (Rob Riggle) and Mayor Tammy (Lauren Lapkus), who also drives an Uber and teaches piano. Mayor Tammy tells the family an old legend about Stingy Jack, who was such a jerk that the townspeople killed him. When Sydney accidentally unleashes Jack’s spirit, which brings the Halloween decorations in town to life, she has to team up with her skeptical dad to stop Jack before midnight, which involves fighting giant tarantulas and rogue scary clowns.
Jeff Wadlow (“Fantasy Island”) directed from a script written by Todd Berger (“The Happytime Murders”) and Robert Rugan.
‘A Stork’s Journey 2’
This 2023 animated tale is for kids who are too young for even the most innocent scares. It follows an orphaned sparrow named Richard (voiced by David Henrie in the English version), who was taken in by a flock of storks. He is now aiming to become leader of the yearly migration north from Africa and has been working hard to get the gig, unlike his stork brother Max (Ryan Colt Levy), who would rather nap and chill than prepare. When the stork council chooses Max, a hurt and frustrated Richard takes off on his own. Richard’s friends Olga the owl (Jane Lynch) and Kiki the parakeet (Brent Mukai) follow after him. They all meet a sparrow named Samia (Jenn McAllister) who, like the other city sparrows, is being controlled by a villainous peacock named Zamano (Bob Carter). To stop Zamano and free the sparrows, they must find a hidden jewel, and Richard and his buddies band together to save the day.
Mette Tange and Benjamin Quabeck directed, and Tange and Quabeck wrote the script with Reza Memari and Philip LaZebnik.
‘Treasure Trackers’
In another new-girl-in-town tale, Leah (Charity Rose) leaves Encinitas, Calif., for the small country hamlet of Carterville with her father (Matthew Tarricone). She quickly makes friends with the geeky Marshy (Sean Jay) and the outspoken Tessa (Amelia Salazar). When someone steals an old diary from a display in the library, Leah discovers the story of an evil man named Silas Carter who was an early settler in the area. Legend has it that Silas died without telling anyone where he’d buried his gold. The catch is that the gold is cursed because a witch put a hex on Silas, trapping his soul in the gold bars. Whoever finds the treasure will release Silas’s soul from the curse and become possessed by his spirit. Leah and her friends set out to save the town because a group of ill-intentioned bullies are trying to find the gold first.
Kids who love minor scares and a good detective story should enjoy this one. Drew Garcia and Nathan Garcia directed, and Harris Kauffman and David Altman wrote the script.
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