Wendell & Wild (2022)
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Two demon brothers discover a rejuvenating hair cream that can also resurrect the dead, leading them to strike a deal with a grieving girl.
The story
Eight-year-old Katherine "Kat" Elliot lives in the town of Rust Bank, where her parents are killed in a car accident. In the underworld, demon brothers Wendell and Wild discover a rejuvenating hair cream that has the power to resurrect the dead. After hallucinating about Kat, they identify her as their "hell maiden." They appear to her in a dream, falsely promising to revive her parents if she summons them to the living world. Kat, who blames herself for her parents' deaths, begins to seek out the brothers, unaware of the true intentions behind their offer.
Full plot (contains spoilers)
After Kat's parents die in a car accident, she becomes a juvenile delinquent. In the underworld, demon brothers Wendell and Wild discover that a hair cream they use on their father, Buffalo Belzer, can resurrect the dead. They identify Kat as their 'hell maiden' and trick her into summoning them by promising to revive her parents. Kat, accompanied by a trans boy named Raúl (born Ramona), attempts to summon them but the brothers appear in the wrong part of the cemetery. Meanwhile, the town of Rust Bank is being taken over by the Klaxons, who want to demolish the town to expand their prisons. The brothers resurrect a town council member, Bests, who convinces the Klaxons to pay them to revive the rest of the council to gain votes for demolition. The brothers force Kat to help them, but Raúl steals the cream and accidentally revives Kat's parents. Kat helps Raúl escape the brothers. Later, Kat is subjected to a 'soul binding' ritual by Sister Helley and Manberg, which reveals her precognition powers are from her hell maiden status and helps her realize her parents' death wasn't her fault. Bests and the brothers kidnap Kat's parents to kill them, but Kat's group intervenes. Belzer eventually reconciles with his sons after seeing a mural by Raúl. Kat uses the last of the cream to revive brewery workers to testify against the Klaxons' crimes, leading to their arrest. Before her parents die, Kat shows them a vision of a revived Rust Bank, and the brothers offer them VIP passes to their afterlife fair.
- First release year
- 2022
- Runtime (minutes)
- 105
- Production countries
- United States
- Original languages
- English
- Directors
- Henry Selick
- Writers
- Henry Selick · screenplay; Jordan Peele · screenplay
- Cast and characters
- Keegan-Michael Key · Wendell; Jordan Peele · Wild; Angela Bassett · Sister Helley; Lyric Ross · Katherine "Kat" Elliot; James Hong; Ving Rhames · Buffalo Belzer
- Genres
- animated; Gothic comedy horror; fantasy; science fiction horror
- Themes
- grief; prejudice; family; redemption
- Tone and mood
- macabre; playful; gothic
- Setting
- The town of Rust Bank and the underworld in the modern era.
- Premise and plot tags
- stop-motion; demons; resurrection; premonition
- Source material / true-story basis
- Selick's and Clay McLeod Chapman's unpublished book of the same name.
- Content notes
- LGBTQ-related
- Reception
- The film received generally positive reviews from critics who welcomed Selick's return and praised its stop-motion animation and characters, but criticized its screenplay and the overloaded plot.
- Reported review scores
- Metacritic · score: 69 · scale: 100 · review count: 31
- Production trivia
- The film was dedicated to Mark Musumeci, an electricity consultant who worked on almost all of Selick's previous stop-motion features since The Nightmare Before Christmas, who died during production.; Part of the film was done as cutout animation to make the puppets look more two-dimensional.; The film's soundtrack was noted for its emphasis on Afro-punk bands.
Film metadata comes from the open sources listed in Credits & Contact. Catalogue details may be incomplete.
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