Wendell & Wild

Wendell & Wild is a 2022 American adult stop motion-animated horror comedy film directed by Henry Selick from a screenplay written by Selick and Jordan Peele (who are also producers), based on Selick's and Clay McLeod Chapman's unpublished book of the same name. It stars Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele as the titular characters with Angela Bassett, Lyric Ross, James Hong, and Ving Rhames in supporting roles. This was Selick's first feature film since Coraline (2009).
== Plot ==
Eight year old Katherine "Kat" Koniqua Elliot lives with her parents Delroy and Wilma, who own a root beer brewery in the town of Rust Bank. Driving home on a stormy night from a library fundraiser at the brewery, Kat is frightened by a two-headed worm in her candy apple, leading her father to veer off a bridge; only Kat survives after her mother sacrifices her life to save her. Meanwhile, in the underworld, demon brothers Wendell and Wild spend their days putting rejuvenating hair cream on their balding father, Buffalo Belzer, while dreaming of making an amusement park, the Dream Fair, for departed souls to challenge Belzer's "Scream Fair". Wild continuously steals the hair cream by eating it for its hallucinogenic effect, much to Wendell's annoyance, but Wild manages to change Wendell's mind by force-feeding him the cream. The hallucinogenic effect kicks in, and the brothers have a vision of Kat.
Five years later, Kat is an embittered, punk rock-loving thirteen year old juvenile delinquent who blames herself for her parents' deaths. Kat is enrolled in Rust Bank's all-girls Catholic school, headed by Father Bests. A trio of preppy classmates attempt to befriend Kat. The group is led by Siobhan Klaxon, whose parents Lane and Irmgard's private prison company Klaxon "Klax" Korp has taken over the town. Kat unintentionally endears herself to Siobhan by saving her from a falling brick, which she anticipated through premonition, a power that shocks her. Later, she meets Raúl Cocolotl, a trans boy who was once friends with Siobhan and the one who accidentally broke the brick that nearly landed on the latter’s head. Raúl's mother, Marianna, is convinced the Klaxons are the reason the brewery burned down and caused it to kill all of its workers. During a class taught by Sister Helley, Kat receives a marking on her hand resembling a skull when she approached Helley's desk, which Helley tells her she must hide and tell no one. The mark alerts Wendell and Wild from a possessed stuffed-bear called Bearzebub, identifying Kat as their "hell maiden", and they appear to her in a dream and make an empty promise to revive her parents (though demons can't resurrect the dead), if she summons them to the world of the living.
Kat steals Bearzebub from Helley's desk so she can use it to summon Wendell and Wild. Helley, once a hell maiden herself, works with the school's janitor and secret demon hunter, Manberg, who hunts demons and keeps them in jars. Father Bests is revealed to be in league with the Klaxons, who kill him as the last witness to their factory fire. After his funeral, Kat recruits Raúl as her witness to summon the demon brothers, who brought their father's hair cream with them after they discovered that it can bring dead organisms back to life. However, by the taking the wrong way, the brothers appear in a different part of the cemetery, and Kat believes she has been stood up.
Wendell and Wild test the cream on Bests, who comes back to life and convinces the Klaxons to pay the brothers to revive the deceased members of the town council, which will give the Klaxons the votes they need to demolish Rust Bank and expand their prisons. Though the Klaxons fear they could resurrect other people in the cemetery, such as the brew workers that died in the fire, and other witnesses to the brewery arson, they tell Wendell and Wild that if they revive Kat's parents or any other dead people, they won't pay for their fair or for the school. Bests returns to school, and Kat confronts the brothers, who make her vow to serve them forever in exchange for her parents' resurrection but it is just a ruse to make sure that they won’t resurrect anyone in the cemetery. Forced to dig up the council members, whom Wendell and Wild revive, Raúl steals the cream and revives Delroy and Wilma himself. Reunited with her parents, Kat helps Raúl escape the brothers.
After the zombie council approves the Klaxons' plans and pay Bests, Wendell, and Wild with a bag full of money, Siobhan discovers her parents' lies about the conditions of their prisons. Helley and Manberg make Kat undergo a ritual called soul binding, confronting her memories and severing her allegiance with Wendell and Wild, resulting in her accepting the fact that her parents' death was not her fault. The soul binding ritual further gives Kat the control of her precognitive powers, which Helley reveals are a consequence of her status as a hell maiden. After learning of their resurrection, Bests, Wendell, and Wild kidnap Delroy and Wilma and take them to the cemetery to kill them until Kat, Raúl, Helley, and Manberg stop them, where Siobhan, who followed her pet pygmy goat Gabby Goat to the cemetery, reveals that her parents paid Bests, Wendell, and Wild worthless company money. Buffalo Belzer appears, having discovered Wendell and Wild's deception, but a mural painted by Raúl as his art project, depicting his mother Marianna, as a mighty Mayan warrior, defending and protecting a baby Raúl against a two-headed dragon (representing the Klaxons) painted part-by-part on every house's roof in Rust Bank, convinces him to make up with his sons. Manberg releases his collection of jarred demons after learning they are Belzer's children in exchange for Kat and the others. Belzer apologizes to Wendell and Wild, approving their plans for their Dream Fair. Bests dies again, and Belzer explains that the cream's effects “don’t last.”
Kat says it's too late to save Rust Bank, but Sister Helley tells her that her power to see into the future can help her change it. Recalling that Raúl said there needs to be a witness to prove the Klaxons are guilty, Kat tells him to use the very last bit of cream to revive as many dead brew workers as he can. The group fends off the bulldozers conducted by the zombie council set to demolish the town while Raúl revives three dead factory workers to testify to the Klaxons' crimes, resulting in their arrest. The cream's effect begin to wear off on Delroy and Wilma, but before they die, Kat uses her precognition to give them a glimpse of the future where Rust Bank is revived, and Wendell and Wild offer them VIP passes to their afterlife fair. Kat makes peace with her life, considering everyone her friends, even Wendell and Wild themselves.
In a post-credits scene, one of the production members finds an anthropomorphic model of Kat walking around his office desk.
Category:Stop-motion animated films
Category:American films
Category:Netflix original films
Category:Rated PG-13
Category:Films starring Keegan-Michael Key
Category:Films starring Jordan Peele
Category:Films starring James Hong
Category:Films starring Ving Rhames
Category:Films directed by Henry Selick
Category:Films starring Angela Bassett